Bricklaying Robots and Exoskeletons Are the Future of the Construction Industry (vice.com) 228
David Silverberg reports via Motherboard: One of the most staid and digitally conservative industries is on the verge of a robotic makeover. The global construction space isn't known for ushering new tech into their workforce, but a painful labour shortage, calls for increased worker safety and more low-cost housing, and the need to catch up to other tech-savvy sectors is giving upstarts in robotics and exoskeletons their big moment. The construction industry isn't immune to this phenomenon, but robots and humans may increasingly work hand-in-hand in industrial sectors, according to Brian Turmail, senior executive director of public affairs at the Associated General Contractors of America. This is especially true when the construction industry en masse uses exoskeleton vests, which aim to assist workers with heavy loads and thus reduce their risk of injury.
The Hadrian X is a bricklaying robot courtesy Australia's Fastbrick Robotics, which uses its 30-meter metal arm to lay bricks at a rate of 1,000 bricks per hour, compared to a human worker's average of 1,000 a day. Due for release in late 2017, Hadrian X can read a 3D CAD model of the house and then it follows those instructions precisely, working day and night. New York-based Construction Robotics has also developed its take on a bricklaying robot. SAM can lay 3,000 bricks a day, and the company said it's about time this industry got a whiff of the change almost every other market has been seeing.
The Hadrian X is a bricklaying robot courtesy Australia's Fastbrick Robotics, which uses its 30-meter metal arm to lay bricks at a rate of 1,000 bricks per hour, compared to a human worker's average of 1,000 a day. Due for release in late 2017, Hadrian X can read a 3D CAD model of the house and then it follows those instructions precisely, working day and night. New York-based Construction Robotics has also developed its take on a bricklaying robot. SAM can lay 3,000 bricks a day, and the company said it's about time this industry got a whiff of the change almost every other market has been seeing.
"a painful labour shortage"?! Bollocks! (Score:5, Informative)
There's no shortage of workers. There are lots of people around who'd be willing to do this work. It's a shortage of employers willing to pay the wage required to properly compensate people for doing the work. Pay a proper wage and this "labor shortage" will disappear immediately.
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Re:"a painful labour shortage"?! Bollocks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there is a surplus of workers who believe their labour is worth more than it really is. That's the real problem and it is being rectified.
Quit picking on the CEO's.
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Within a capitalist economy, their labor is worth whatever it may cost to lure them into doing the job.
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If robots are cheaper, robots will do the work.
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Yep. And that's the looming problem we're all facing - robots have reached the point that they're rapidly encroaching on most areas of human endeavor - able to do things better, faster, and cheaper than any human. Unless your job requires significant amounts of creativity you'll likely be facing robotic replacement within a few decades. Even middle management will likely be largely replaced, and upper management is safe only because they're the ones calling the shots.
So, the question is do we start doing
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Amazing that the two of you think you said something different.
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That is the same thing, is it not? Either management is willing to pay enough to lure enough people into doing the job - or the job doesn't get done.
Basically, you get paid roughly what it would cost to replace you. If there's a long line of PhD holding experts in your field desperate for a job, then you're going to get paid minimum wage. Similarly, if there's a shortage of unskilled shift workers, then they can expect to get paid enough to lure people into leaving other jobs to do unskilled shift work.
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The problem with that thesis is that paying for quality work doesn't guarantee that you get quality work. And you have already specified that the people in charge can't tell the difference.
This is why the school of management that says "a good manager can manage anything" is wrong. A good manager can manage managers, because he recognizes good management. A good carpenter is not necessarily a good manager, but can recognize another good carpenter. So good middle management is the important part...but to
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affordable housing for Millenials (yeah, right) (Score:2)
Who am I kidding, this will just allow speculators to throw up more buildings to be snapped up by Chinese investors and sit empty.
Re:affordable housing for Millenials (yeah, right) (Score:5, Interesting)
Housing prices in most places are caused by two things right now: Super low interest rates, and speculators. So you'd be right, not at all. Hell in Canada, it's so bad that in parts where speculation is running wild(BC, Ontario) that nearly 50% of those houses, apts, and so on are sitting empty.
I live in a small town, 5 years ago a buddy of mine bought a house here which went for $79k. Today it's worth $390k, the median income is around $42k/year. The market crash when it happens here in Canada is going to be spectacular. It's even worse in places like Toronto which have seen house prices go from $600k last year to $1.1m this year.
Re:affordable housing for Millenials (yeah, right) (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just Canada...
In parts of the US West Coast, housing speculation has skyrocketed, hard. For instance, in Portland, OR and surrounding areas, a house that you couldn't get rid of for $200k during the housing bust of 2007-2010 (or so) will sell out in less than 48 hours now for $550k.
Even way out in the sticks where I live (a 75 to 90-minute commute from downtown Portland), I purchased a hidden gem of sorts (a 2 bdrm cabin on 6 acres) in an unincorporated area of Columbia County for $250k back in late 2015. Nowadays I routinely get pestered by real estate vultures wanting me to sell it for $350-$400k (the little house is very nice, but it's mostly for the land, which has 800' of riverfront, and has wilderness areas next door on two sides of the property). In a year, I bet they'll be sniffing around for $500-600k or so if the bubble holds up. Funny thing though, I bought the place to retire in, so, well, screw 'em. I'm staying put.
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It's not just Canada...
In parts of the US West Coast, housing speculation has skyrocketed, hard.
Australia as well, we shouldn't forget them. And in the UK their largest subprime lender, just lost 75% of it's value. A subprime lender here in Canada lost 80% of it's market value a few months ago too.
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By "most places" you of course mean "1% of places where everyone is dogpiling in, while 99% of places are cheap". Lot of land out there, even near cities.
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It's a shortage of employers willing to pay the wage required to properly compensate people for doing the work. Pay a proper wage and this "labor shortage" will disappear immediately.
Well, sort of. If the employee overhead (wages, taxes, etc) plus other costs add up to more than they can reasonably sell the product (house/building/etc) for, then either of the following happens:
1) corners are cut
2) the project is scaled back in size, scope, or features
3) the price skyrockets to match costs+previously promised returns on investment
4) the project is abandoned (this happens a lot more than you think, especially on larger construction gigs.)
Now, if someone coughs up a robot that can do the j
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More than that, bricklaying and masonry in general is a skilled trade, and there's a deep labor shortage in the skilled trades, especially construction-related, that's really limiting new construction. We're sending everyone off to college with the expectation of a white-collar job these days, and very few are going to be looking at jobs like bricklaying at any (reasonable) pay.
Re:"a painful labour shortage"?! Bollocks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Pay a proper wage and this "labor shortage" will disappear immediately.
And how much would you have to charge for a new starter home? Would that price be beyond the budget of most first time aspiring homebuyers?
The definition of a "proper wage" has always been competition between how much buyers are willing to pay for the final product and how much suppliers are willing to sell their goods/labor. You can't just point at one side and way "raise the wage" without explaining why buyers are going to pay more and what impact that will have on them. At least for me, keeping the barriers to homeownership low seems like a very worthy social goal, one that needs to be balanced against all the other worthy goals we have.
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A journeyman bricklayer makes ~$35/hour W2 in Los Angeles, and there is a shortage. They can easily get 25% overtime at 1.5x. Most low-rise residential and all single family homes would be non-union labor closer to $15-18/hour W2 with lower benefits.
The real shortage in California specifically is in electricians, who make $50-65/hour (journeyman), and could easily make $130-150k with overtime.
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100% correct
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Oh? Pay more and a crowd of new people will instantly become journeyman bricklayers, having completed training and years of apprenticeship? You have a shallow and simple-minded view of things, I'd say.
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There's no shortage of workers. There are lots of people around who'd be willing to do this work. It's a shortage of employers willing to pay the wage required to properly compensate people for doing the work. Pay a proper wage and this "labor shortage" will disappear immediately.
Automation engineer here. I guess this is part of the argument that I see quite regularly.
When you work in that field, it's inevitable that you eventually ask yourself : "Am I destroying jobs?"
The way I see it, yes we do destroy job. But do you know what's even more efficient to destroy Western jobs? Chineses!
I'm surprised that we get so much hate while most manifacturing jobs have been lost to mondialisation during the 20th century. Are we already forgotten that about everything you buy in Walmart have a "
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Fortunately, the ability to spell "hire" isn't one of the requirements for the job....
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I too like to find a grammar mistake
There is a robot that can do that job.
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suppress wages
Suppress wages? I guess it depends on the trade and area in question. In the Upper Midwest a Journeyman Boilermaker, Pipefitter, Electrician, or Carpenter (The industrial/scaffolding kind, don't personally know about the house-building kind) can bring home $80-100K a year. Apprentices generally start at around 65% of that. Granted, it's super hard work and a lot of people don't cut it, but you can't say $100k a year is a "Suppressed wage".
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True, it is more complex then just the individual. However to break the chain of poverty really needs the individual to step up and say I won't live like this, this means going against the ideals and habits that they grew up with. So it really takes a lot of work for someone to break poverty and actually get one of those dull lower middle class life styles, then their kids if taught right, decide to go further could make it to upper middle class.
From Rags to Riches is extremely rare. But careful life deci
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I assume these people shop around, so it's the competition that determines the price.
It gets hard to tease out all the competition, but if someone already owns the land, he's going to try to get as low a price as possible for th
I can see lawyers salivating at the prospect... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Been hurt at work? Did you exoskeleton suddenly fail when you were lifting 200kg of blocks above your head 5 floors up? Now paralysed and being fed via a tube? Give Constructive Legal a call on ....."
etc.
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Nothing new here. 1000's of years of construction has seen it all, even if it looks different to an outsider.
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Plus with the current litigious nature of things I would expect that exoskeleton to see quite a bit of testing and safety systems prior to widespread use.
New automobile maintenance lifts used in commercial settings are required to have automatic locking systems to prevent a hydraulic failure from lowering the load. If hydraulic pressure is lost the load will settle-down onto the mechanical lock right below it, so that the load doesn't crush the mechanic or unevenly lower the vehicle to where it falls off t
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You can jump clear of a forklift unless it has a protective cab. Good luck trying to jump out of an exoskeleton and it has no protective cage.
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Clear a forklift? Really?
When rough conditions happen, you have no warning, because you are already in mud or tilted terrain. So when you finally tilt, there is no warning. And the danger of tilting itself isn't so bad, you just sit sideways: No the real danger of tilting, is that things start tumbling or falling around.
When you think about it, Exoskeletons only need one safety mechanism for common usage: If something goes wrong, lock joint. And allow user to leave the device, if he has help.
Then again, the
This looks incomplete to me (Score:5, Interesting)
The video in the article shows a rather large device laying bricks according to plan. Fine.. but bricks alone are more or less useless without mortar. And in most cases (at least in my region) bricks are a facing on wood frame construction over a poured concrete basement. This robot doesn't look like it can work on anything but an empty slab of concrete, limiting it to small industrial unit builds.
Now, the second bricklayer robot linked to from the main article... that looks more interesting. It lays bricks against an existing surface, it's smaller, and it appears to handle mortar.
I'm still more keen on the giant 3D printers that print layers of concrete, though as you'd expect there's still a long way to go before they can handle ceilings and other structures with large areas lacking support while setting.
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>Mortar is poured in from above into the hollow bricks.
I missed that step, and I'm fascinated to find out how that gets between the bricks, and doesn't waste a LOT of mass either making the bricks mostly solid or filling their voids with mortar.
I'll have to watch the video again and pay closer attention.
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>I will be building a house this year and would kill for a solid masonry brick home.
If you're building it, it seems like (subject to money, skill, and building codes) there's a much simpler solution than killing for it!
As a LEGO enthusiast, I'd kill for click-together bricks made from an appropriate hard rubber compound. It's been done once or twice but never seriously. The idea, however, of simply assembling my house to taste once I have a concrete pad and utility hookups is fascinating to me. Disass
Re: This looks incomplete to me (Score:2)
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Re:This looks incomplete to me (Score:4, Informative)
I think it's important to differentiate between bricks (dark, historically clay-fired) and concrete blocks.
I don't think bricks are used for structural features anymore, but concrete block still is used for foundations and sometimes walls. The challenge for concrete block, though, is even in large scale construction where you would use them they already face competition from poured concrete and precast concrete panels. I think both are structurally sounder and allow rapid assembly of large buildings. Most new warehouses or industrial buildings made from concrete are built this way.
I live in an older neighborhood that's seen a fair amount of teardown new construction and the basement foundations are almost universally made from form-based poured concrete from what I've seen. In the types of construction where concrete block is still used, the scale often seems small -- a limited set of block courses before switching to wood or steel framing.
I'm not sure how much robotics works in this market.
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>I live in an older neighborhood that's seen a fair amount of teardown new construction and the basement foundations are almost universally made from form-based poured concrete from what I've seen. In the types of construction where concrete block is still used, the scale often seems small -- a limited set of block courses before switching to wood or steel framing. I'm not sure how much robotics works in this market.
I can see a future where a surveyor stakes out four corners of the foundation as referenc
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I think automating foundations is probably not very likely considering the amount and complexity of robotics involved relative to what's already being saved in the traditional poured concrete method.
Soil variability makes automated excavation a challenge, you really need a person doing the digging to deal with small-scale variations in soil conditions (dig more here, dig less there) or with unknown stuff under a re-purposed building site (abandoned utilities or foundations).
Existing poured foundations are a
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The video in the article shows a rather large device laying bricks according to plan.
As a mechanical engineer, my first thought was, "How much fuel does it take to move that massive thing!"
A couple of human bricklayers can't be that expensive compared to that fuel guzzling beast. I thought we were trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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>As a mechanical engineer, my first thought was, "How much fuel does it take to move that massive thing!"
That didn't even occur to me. I think you'd have to compare its carbon footprint to that of an average human worker. Maybe it's actually more efficient per brick! (Though I think that unlikely)
My actual first thought was much more ridiculous. I'd like to see a smaller robot, perhaps able to carry just a half-dozen bricks and mortar, that could crawl along brickwork laying a new row behind it and ei
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Not only that, but many building techniques these days invert the solid structure, and the insulation - using insulation bricks, and then in-filling it with concrete to provide the structure. There's no need to mortar the bricks when doing that.
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Re:This looks incomplete to me (Score:4, Funny)
It's quite common to have an entirely brick house...
36-24-36
Cinder blocks? (Score:2)
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Of course! We've been 3D printing houses for YEARS now! Get with it, pops!
No one has done a tilt up in years. It's all mixed development with concrete garages and storefronts at ground level, and four stories of wood housing on top.
Bricks? (Score:3)
Seismic activity is increasing for reasons both man-made and natural. Just what we need, more brick facades!
Robots will need a third hand (Score:2)
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Might need some upgrades (Score:2)
That's a pretty cool robot but I have to wonder how useful it is to stack bricks without mortar or rebar. Most civilized building codes (or for that matter sane buyers) would not let you occupy a structure that is not reinforced. Particularly in earthquake prone regions.
Maybe that's part of the job that humans are still supposed to do. It is a step in the right direction.
It's a matter of time... (Score:2)
Brick layers should worry.
These machines do not get tired;
they do not ask for over time;
they do not need "days-off';
they do not engage in office "politics";
They will work exactly as programmed.
Those are some of the benefits. I am sure there are more. Question is: What will present brick layers do?
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>What will present brick layers do?
Bricklayers (the highly skilled ones) will simply work smaller jobs or oversee the robots while the lesser bricklayers will be looking for other work.
The transition will take the better part of a generation anyway, so mostly it will be attrition that takes care of the labour problem. I don't see these robots decimating the industry in less than a couple of decades.
3 little pigs laws of robotonomics safe (Score:2)
Listen, and understand! That Brickernator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't take smoke breaks, sick days, or catcall women walking down the street! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until that house is built!
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or catcall women walking down the street!
Do those folks still do this stuff?
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Do those folks still do this stuff?
The more suave bricklayers can look into a woman's eye halfway across the construction site and make her blush as she walks down the sidewalk without ever saying a word.
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By the way, anybody who's not a total virgin will tell you that small breasts with dark nipples feel like bags of sand, Creimer. Bags of sand. Not solar panels.
If you bother to read my short story beyond the free sampler, you would have found out that the character in question was an android.
To paraphrase a line from Star Trek 6: Undiscovered Country [amzn.to], "Not all androids keep their solar panels in the same place."
BTW, A female editor accepted this short story for publication in her anthology, and she had no problems with my descriptions of female hardware.
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The sad thing is, your story is not intended as comedy, but I howled and howled through the free sampler.
It's a parody of "Sunday in The Park with George" [amzn.to]. You're supposed to laugh.
I wonder if it's worth the 99 cents just for more laughter!
Since you're a cheap literary critic looking for cheap shots, why don't you read the short story, "Sunday In The Park With Dawei," for FREE at Smashwords [smashwords.com] (coupon code LE67R, valid through 8/31/2017).
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Brick layers should worry.
Question is: What will present brick layers do?
That is the other half of the equation. and one that needs addressed and soon. But it is ignored, in the manner of "We'll drive off that cilff when we come to it".
That this automation of almost all jobs is coming - the only way it won't happen is if we bomb ourselves back to the stone age, and will need actual human labor to survive.
But there will be a metric shitload of excess population that will have to be dealt with. And not all options are helpful to the top tier of players. We are looking at a ch
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That this automation of almost all jobs is coming
Sure, over the next couple of centuries. Of course, almost all jobs that people were doing a century or two ago are automated now.
Real-world infrastructure isn't the internet. Manufacturing facilities may have 25-year replacement cycles (but them, that's almost all automated already). Construction equipment and techniques change similarly slowly. Humans a resistant to change in their daily activities, and most still prefer a human cashier, meaning generations to fully automate that job even if we had th
The state of denial (Score:2)
I've noticed a lot of people are pretty sure the job they do is unlikely to be replaced by a machine.
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As an example, a simple medieval style shirt used to cost about $3,000 to make at today's minimum wage..
A costly mistake... (Score:2)
There's no point in having a robot move bricks a human can move. Human sized bricks are human sized, because humans suck for moving something bigger.
Show me a robot that just places an entire wall in one go.
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There's no point in having a robot move bricks a human can move.
Dude, it's all about the money. While humans can do what you suggest, robots need no overtime or days off or politics.
In fact, They work better than human beings who will [sometimes] strike over pay.
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There's no point in having a robot move bricks a human can move. Human sized bricks are human sized, because humans suck for moving something bigger.
Show me a robot that just places an entire wall in one go.
Supply chain and workforce integration. By using standard sized bricks you can have a robot working alongside or supplementing human bricklayers without unnecessarily complicating purchasing and shipping of materials. Businesses further up the supply chain would also have to adjust their manufacturing process to make these larger bricks, further complicating their business and adding unnecessary costs. There is also the aesthetic component: people like the look of standard sized bricks.
Re:A costly mistake... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you have to ask "why brick at all?" Anything you do with brick you can do with concrete. Architects love concrete for its possibilities, but normal humans prefer the traditional look of brick.
And while you're talking about 3D printing, concrete as a 3D printing medium is coming along nicely, and is in the very early adopter stage where people who use it do so because it creates things that look different. But early adopters, while crucial in the tech adoption curve, aren't where you make money. You make money selling to the masses, and the masses are conservative.
Take concrete block construction; this does exactly what you suggest, make the construction cheaper and faster by using larger units. I live in a block house, and it would not be a whit better if it were made from bricks instead, but it'd be worth a lot more because people know concrete block construction is cheaper than brick.
So the advantage of a robot that lays conventional-looking bricks isn't functional. It's economic. Brick-laying robots create structures that have greater value than ones made by block-laying or concrete extruding robots.
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That's why my preferred solution is stamped concrete made to look like brick. It's already commonly used for pavement purposes like sidewalks and such.
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There's no point in having a robot move bricks a human can move. Human sized bricks are human sized, because humans suck for moving something bigger.
You can only fire clay into a brick up to a certain size. Above that size and you can't get the center of the brick to properly convert from clay to brick. Standard bricks were already pushing that limit, which is why modern standard bricks have holes in them.
To make a much larger brick, you need to make them hollow. At which point, you are making a much more expensive and weaker concrete block.
Brickbots are one thing (Score:5, Funny)
The real money will be Trimbots, who's purpose is to cover up all the mistakes of all the other constructionbots.
Construction Robotics Joke (Score:2, Insightful)
I watched the clip about them on TV. Their claim was that the robot could 3000 a day, but a human could only do 1000. THEN they said that the robot needed 2 people to follow it and clean things up. So, 1 robot at 3000 plus two guys at 0 = 3 workers at 3000 = not a damn bit faster than current speed. Yes, they got a robot to do a new task, but it's not any faster than current.
Maybe this will help with real estate inflation (Score:2)
Real estate is one of the few areas where prices (especially in the last couple decades) have inflated WAY beyond what they've historically been, and I wonder if part of that is because we're still building houses with a lot of the same old inefficiencies that we've always had. Bringing some serious automation into the sector could be a good thing for prices, however, that threatens one of the few remaining industries where someone could come straight out of high school and start a decent career.
But: Does it do top-notch work? (Score:2)
Go talk to an actual bricklayer. He'll tell you that he could work a lot faster -- if no one cares what the quality of the work looks like. Almost anyone can hurry up and do something fast, but it'll likely be sloppy looking when they get done, and it might not even hold together properly.
Keep in mind that, the last time I checked, they still can't build a robot th
Okay nobody freaked out about backhoes (Score:2)
This is no different if you watched the video yes the robot works faster then people but it also has a considerable setup time for the sensors and lasers that guide it. Also they need people to load it with bricks and mortar at regular intervals as well. So don't go running away from the trades because there's a new tool on the construction site.
Really? (Score:2)
Aesthetics (Score:2)
Regardless of the ability to lay brick (Score:2)
The brick laying attachment on the end of these machines will be out of a job
Had A Cup of Coffee, Pretty Cartoon (Score:2)
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You gotta build the Australian houses faster to keep out the poisonous snakes, poisonous scorpions, poisonous frogs, poisonous platypuses, Tasmanian Devils, and fire tornadoes.
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His Australian cousin also uses 5 to 10 times as many bricks per sq foot of wall.
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A building made of bricks lasts much longer than a structure made out of dead trees.
Unless you live in an earthquake zone. In an earthquake, wood frame buildings sway. Brick buildings fall down.
In the SF Bay Area, brick construction is banned. If you see a brick building, it is mostly likely a fake facade on a wood or steel frame.
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Because aerogel and carbon fiber are cheap.
Also missing in your rant is that bricks are actually a pretty good insulator, since they have a lot of thermal mass.
Finally, the limit on bricks is not human hands, but chemistry. You can't get the center of a larger brick to convert from clay to brick. Because of that thermal mass.
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Jobs for robots.
Specifically, jobs for bricklaying robots.
Just as humans would hide and bury skeletons in the concrete, robots would hide and bury exoskeletons.
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So I need some brickwork done...about 1,000 bricks.
Now, I hire one guy to spend a day laying those bricks. he gets paid a day's wages. (Ok, he's probably an illegal but work with me here)
With the brick laying robot, they spend an hour laying those 1,000 bricks, presumably charge me for one hour's labor (materials separate) with maybe some robot fee or tax included, then the go on and do another 4-5 jobs that day.
Automation usually lowers cost. Lower costs means more people can afford it, which means there w
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That brick laying robot still has to have someone feed it bricks and mortar so it's more like you can pay the same guys to run it make his job easier and more productive.