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Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

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Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#71

Post by 411111111111111 »

brainless wrote: post #62
daggerdrone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, if there was shortage of coconut harvesters, why were they poor? Can't they demand more money for the task?

Most Indians, me including and people I know of, do not understand the concepts of pricing that Western countries talk about. Even now, in 2020, this comes up frequently in product pricing when I talk to founders in India who haven't seen the Western notion of pricing first hand.

There are a lot of people that don't understand it in the west as well. It's also not as easy as some people make it sound. After all, it's the perceived value of both parties making the trade and not the actual value that's important.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#72

Post by someonenice »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #35
dxbydt wrote: post #21

I grew up in a remote village in south India. We had over two dozen coconut trees in our yard. I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. This sort of manual work was stan…

> Even then, in the 1970s, there was a shortage of coconut harvesters. What's the problem with letting the coconuts fall off naturally? Danger?

The coconut is harvested at different stages and used for different purpose - Tender coconut - Havested at very early stage and mainly used for the water. They have cream inside that is yet not solid and more water. Good for drinking only. - Slighly ripe. These are the coconut used for cooking. They have solid inside and less water. Grated coconut and coconut milk are made from this. Virgin coconut oil is also made from these. - Old ones - Mostly the coconut that falls naturally. Outside is fully brown in color. They have no water inside. And the solid cake is dried and pressed to extract oil.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#73

Post by riffraff »

brainless wrote: post #62
daggerdrone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, if there was shortage of coconut harvesters, why were they poor? Can't they demand more money for the task?

Most Indians, me including and people I know of, do not understand the concepts of pricing that Western countries talk about. Even now, in 2020, this comes up frequently in product pricing when I talk to founders in India who haven't seen the Western notion of pricing first hand.

Agriculture in Europe runs on underpaid, often illegal, immigration.

There's pressure on the consumer side not to pay, say, a tomato more than a few cents, which means you either pay workers peanuts or you just don't harvest them.

So, not that different I suppose.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#74

Post by jeswin »

daggerdrone wrote: post #58
dxbydt wrote: post #21

I grew up in a remote village in south India. We had over two dozen coconut trees in our yard. I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. This sort of manual work was stan…

Just out of curiosity, if there was shortage of coconut harvesters, why were they poor? Can't they demand more money for the task?

Most of them wouldn't have had formal education, which will make their negotiation skills weak. So there could be a prevailing rate based on poor pricing and general agreement of those rates (both on the supply and demand side). Additionally, this puts them in a different social bracket which is more used to taking orders than making fair demands. This of course is not unique to this particular trade.

However, I don't think the skills were particularly in short supply especially back then (I am from Kerala, which translates to 'land of coconuts'). Ultimately the coconuts did get pulled although the workers weren't paid so well.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#75

Post by tcoff91 »

axaJay wrote: post #65

They still Poo in Loo. They need to fix their problems first

Are you for real? If this article was about some roboticists in west virginia inventing this, would you say "They still smoke Oxycontin and die of fentanyl left and right, they need to fix their problems first". San Francisco has more than its fair share of human feces that isn't where it belongs and I doubt you'd make the same comment if this was invented there. India has plenty of issues, but that doesn't mean that people there can't freely pursue things like robotics because there are problems.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#76

Post by aaron695 »

jb775 wrote: post #57
aaron695 wrote: post #46

I'd be going drones if doing anything techy as a solution to pick coconuts. I feel like specialist equipment is going to cost to much IRL. Drones will continue to advance and have more people who can work with them. Not saying drones would be cost effective either, but I think at least you can pivot. Also see Sreamers - https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0114367/

Drones aren't currently feasible. They don't have good battery life, they can't carry much weight (for a saw or w/e to chop the coconuts off), and precision cutting would be very difficult without propellors eventually clipping something.....then you have an electric saw dropping 30-50ft out of the air which is terrifying.

You can just tether a power line to a drone so weight and batteries don't matter. And don't use a death saw.

This is why you'd do a drone. It's a good learning experience directly to industry.

A tree climbing robot is way more abstract. Which might be good depending on the degree. But you'll never work on tree climbing robots in real life.

Neither will ever be used by farmers to pick coconuts, so it depends on what you want.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#77

Post by recuter »

brainless wrote: post #69
recuter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate (If you can, I suppose - this is kind of blowing my mind).

I am not surprised it blows your mind. Pricing in the Western systems is all about finding out how high you can price so fewer people pay a lot more which offsets running a larger scale business to serve more customers at lower price points. So these systems have accepted that not everything is for everybody, and do not even make an effort to get things to people. US healthcare is a good example here. Countries with…

The US is not "The West". Price/market segmentation, which is what you're describing (by region) is not exclusive to India or "The East".

"Finding out how high you can price" things is more of a strategy for veblen goods, it is certainly not how everything is priced nor exclusive to any geographic region... I don't think I'm following this at all. :)

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#78

Post by tasogare »

iratewizard wrote: post #60
ponker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people have more empathy for animals than for humans. The idea of a monkey forced/encouraged to climb a tree for a coconut tugs at their heartstrings the way a person does not.

Done right, it's the opposite for me. Those monkeys can live a happy life in the same way as an ox that pulls a tiller.

Ox, horses, nowadays service dogs, animals have been used for a long time as workers in the West. I find the double standard incredible here, especially since it’s impacting very negatively the economy of a developing country. Making a label and the related checks about monkey abuse would be enough to solve the problem without banning their use.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#79

Post by vinay427 »

ponker wrote: post #42
thaumasiotes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There recently was a huge controversy in Thailand about using monkey labor for coconut harvesting Well, I read the article. Why exactly is this supposed to be a problem? By all accounts, it's a good idea that works well.

Many people have more empathy for animals than for humans. The idea of a monkey forced/encouraged to climb a tree for a coconut tugs at their heartstrings the way a person does not.

It seems like you're answering on behalf of a large group of people with differing views that your comment doesn't at all reflect. I, for one, oppose this monkey labor and I would argue I don't have more empathy for "animals than for humans." I try to be equal in many respects and would oppose humans being coerced into doing this as well. It's why I oppose slavery, for instance.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#80

Post by ponker »

vinay427 wrote: post #79
ponker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people have more empathy for animals than for humans. The idea of a monkey forced/encouraged to climb a tree for a coconut tugs at their heartstrings the way a person does not.

It seems like you're answering on behalf of a large group of people with differing views that your comment doesn't at all reflect. I, for one, oppose this monkey labor and I would argue I don't have more empathy for "animals than for humans." I try to be equal in many respects and would oppose humans being coerced into doing this as well. It's why I oppose slavery, for instance.

I didn't say you -- I said many people.
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