131–140 of 190 posts
Just wanted to share that in my country (Spain) and more concretely in my area (rural part of Catalonia) we have a building technique called “Pedra Seca” literal translation is “Dry Stone”. It basically involves building stuff with just rocks, nothing more. It’s still in use mostly in agricultural fields. Here are a few examples: https://dd9de8c7b7.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/b5fbcf0e77b7b72ef95acd62... https://static1.ara.cat/…
Nice achievement! With upcoming multimodal foundation models, there will be many more robots with increasing capabilities soon. The world of robotics will look very different just in the next 5 years. Some announcements: China’s plan: “…China aims to be ready to mass-produce humanoids by 2025.” https://www.therobotreport.com/china-plans-to-mass-produce-h... Tesla Robot: “…it would be low cost and available to the pub…
You should take both of those announcements with a huge dollop of salt. Even the article you shared is extremely skeptical of the actual progress of Tesla's robot. And Chinese press releases should really not be read into too much - they are often much more for internal signalling then information. Either way, there are companies which are much farther along than those - Boston Dynamics has a series of extremely impr…
"Specifications. Tesla Bot is planned to measure 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) tall and weigh 125 lb (57 kg)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_(robot)
I'm aware that Tesla tends to be over-optimistic in its timeline regarding AI and robotics. I do not endorse the estimates without question and yes, some other companies might have made more progress than they did. The citations were meant as examples of the development in the domain. (And Boston Dynamics doesn't seem to plan a consumer launch of a humanoid robot any time soon, so I didn't cite them.)
What made me more optimistic these days are recent progress in multimodal large foundation models which allow robots to perform much better, esp on manual manipulation. See demo from Sep 2023 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2vj0WcvH5c&t=18s&ab_channel...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with dry stone construction is that you cannot determine the performance characteristics required for, say, a building foundation. Not all boulders are created equal, but a professional concrete pour, mixed and installed to the manufacturer’s specification is going to have a guaranteed maximum strength- something random boulders will not have. What we can do is create our own concrete mix using Portland c…
Why not do a stones-wall like in the article, but add cement as glue between the rocks?
Ideally, drystone walls are composed of two skins. The way the stones are arranged tends these skins to each incline inwards slightly. In this way, the wall as a whole acquires cohesion through physics.
Just wanted to share that in my country (Spain) and more concretely in my area (rural part of Catalonia) we have a building technique called “Pedra Seca” literal translation is “Dry Stone”. It basically involves building stuff with just rocks, nothing more. It’s still in use mostly in agricultural fields. Here are a few examples: https://dd9de8c7b7.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/b5fbcf0e77b7b72ef95acd62... https://static1.ara.cat/…
Dry stone walling is also very common in the UK. It's a complex and now expensive skill, but a properly-built (this bit is key) wall will stay put for well over a hundred years because the rocks can shift a little rather then cracking the structure as temperatures change and water drains right out of them. It's also very locally distinctive because the shape of the stones and therefore the wall layout and texture dep…
Just wanted to share that in my country (Spain) and more concretely in my area (rural part of Catalonia) we have a building technique called “Pedra Seca” literal translation is “Dry Stone”. It basically involves building stuff with just rocks, nothing more. It’s still in use mostly in agricultural fields. Here are a few examples: https://dd9de8c7b7.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/b5fbcf0e77b7b72ef95acd62... https://static1.ara.cat/…
It's very common in Croatia, too.
There they are called rubble walls ("hajt tas-sejjieh" in Maltese).
Seems pretty common in Mediterranean countries.
Having made a few dry stone walls I can attest to the merit of this achievement. Judging where rocks are to be placed, and in what orientation is a zen art. Anecdotally... I once tried to get wild flowers to grow on a stone wall. Every year we would seed the wall, only for the seeds to fall out or be eaten by birds. On inspiration, my boss filled a few shotgun cartridges up with seeds and fired them at the wall. Perf…
Not only is this a technical marvel, but it has potential construction physics implications. In simple terms, currently we expend energy to fragment rock, and then we expend additional energy (as concrete) to glue it back together. We do all this to re-arrange rocks into a shape (and strength) we want, and most importantly to do it cheap . Suddenly, an alternative just got a lot cheaper. Clearly this isn't fully bake…
I don't think this is true. Gabion walls are already widely used, particularly in geotechnical structures, and masonry structures have been around for literally thousands of years.
The reason modern building technologies such as concrete/steel/composite structures replaced these techniques is that they are far safer, easier to maintain, far more space-efficient and and impose far fewer architectural constraints.
Automating this process helps drive down the cost, but cost is one of many factors and not a critical one.
> Suddenly, an alternative just got a lot cheaper.
Not really. This article just showcases a way to automate the construction of a particular wall type. This by no means implies these walls are now competitive.
Other than aesthetics, I don't see how it's possible to even conceive standard techniques such as gabion walls being replaced by dry-stone walls. The cost of building a gabion wall is literally the cost of a metal mesh and filling it with rocks. Gabion walls are even used by armed forces as rapid-deployment defensive walls in the form of Hesco bastions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So could catagorization of local stone based on acoustic and visual indicators, combined with random sampling and strength testing provide the assurance needed that a wall will have the required structural properties?
The point is that the concrete manufacturers pulverize and homogenize the aggregate. This makes random sampling acceptable. If you haven't pulverized and mixed the inputs, a random sample is merely a random sample. It isn't meaningful unless it comes from a high-entropy source.
Just wanted to share that in my country (Spain) and more concretely in my area (rural part of Catalonia) we have a building technique called “Pedra Seca” literal translation is “Dry Stone”. It basically involves building stuff with just rocks, nothing more. It’s still in use mostly in agricultural fields. Here are a few examples: https://dd9de8c7b7.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/b5fbcf0e77b7b72ef95acd62... https://static1.ara.cat/…
Just wanted to share that in my country (Spain) and more concretely in my area (rural part of Catalonia) we have a building technique called “Pedra Seca” literal translation is “Dry Stone”. It basically involves building stuff with just rocks, nothing more. It’s still in use mostly in agricultural fields. Here are a few examples: https://dd9de8c7b7.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/b5fbcf0e77b7b72ef95acd62... https://static1.ara.cat/…
We have them in Italy too btw, search for “muretti a secco”.