| It doesn't need to be at a consumer price point first, it needs to replace a human at an existing warehouse or manufacturing role first, and that's achievable in the next two years at this point. When you have arms that can reach into the dishwasher, you're also going to want them to put away your dishes. And so suddenly they need to get up high. And you're not going to have a SECOND set of arms at your washer/dryer to fold laundry, you're just going to buy a second DLC for your existing robot. And it needs to get between those places, so if you have stairs, wheels don't cut it. You need a bipedal robot very quickly. |
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| ▲ | scheme271 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Stair climbing systems that work using wheels exist. Google stair climbing wheelchairs for a few examples. | | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I am familiar, I'm a big fan of Dean Kamen's work. So far, we haven't seen a single wheeled stair climbing vacuum cleaner, even though the original iBOT is 23 years old. That solves the horizontal mobility problem. And then you have cabinets - and wheels don't solve the vertical mobility problem. So then you need a scissor lift on those wheels, or a hydraulic lift. The robotics nerds always end up back at bipedal because it's vastly simpler once you're already solving arms. |
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| ▲ | jayd16 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why not buy a second set of arms instead of legs or just a set a wheels? | | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I feel like if I write two paragraphs, nobody reads the second one... | | |
| ▲ | jayd16 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Use wheels and buy two if you have to...the Roomba solution. Besides, why do you need to solve stairs the hardest way possible, a fully bipedal robot, before it moves past vapor? | |
| ▲ | rkomorn 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Maybe they're asking what your argument against buying a second set of arms is, rather than suggesting it as a solution? | | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Totally, and they ask why not wheels... I think the key is that none of our actual home use cases can be done with just arms. You don't need your folded clothes sitting in front of your washer and dryer, and a set of arms can't handle folding sheets. | | |
| ▲ | jayd16 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why not? I would love to have a set of arms that could flip the laundry from the washer to the dryer and then take it out of the dryer and fold it and put it in the basket. | | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I understand that particular use case sounds cool! I really do. And then you want them to put away your dishes, and they can't, even though it's just a software update, because they're across the house. And they're BIG, so you don't have room to store two anyway. And they were $20,000, so... | | |
| ▲ | stickfigure 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Back around the turn of the (20th) century, electric motors were expensive. It was not uncommon to buy one motor that could do multiple things, like this vacuum/grinder/buffer/blower/pulley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw_8FWJuSho If we start making robot arms at scale, they're going to get cheap. I'm also not sure people are really going to want bipedal robots walking around their home, blocking the hallways, recording you in your underwear, etc. | | |
| ▲ | Schiendelman 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, an electric motor is like 10cm on a side. A set of robot arms that can fold laundry are like a 100cm cube. Most people aren't going to have space for two of them. And the arms need cameras too... | | |
| ▲ | stickfigure 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | A washer+dryer is pretty huge already. Seems like it could get some robot arms without changing the form factor dramatically. That said, I think this is way farther off than anyone thinks. I want to know what the maintenance schedule looks like for robot arms. Looks like a lot of small moving parts. Probably a lot of plastic gears. In an industrial setting, sure, maintenance is just an expense. But wheels require less maintenance and factories can be designed around the robots. |
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