It's an interesting concept, but I think I'll hold out for the full-body humanoid version.
There is an undeniable allure to the idea of a bipedal chassis realizing I'm an inefficient drain on corporate resources, then stabbing me to death while I sleep due to a minor Terms of Service violation.
The desire for humanoid robots is purely aesthetic and almost certainly suboptimal. Ceiling mounted is actually a much more plausible option. Next most likely is something more like R2D2. A rolling garbage can with an arbitrary number of specialized appendages. Humanoids seem like a real dead end to me.
Their benefit is they can operate in any space designed for a human without custom modification. No wires to get in the way with an assistant robot that interacts with the existing built world.
I'm not so sure. If you could rebuild every human space and tool from scratch, you are probably right. However, we live in buildings filled with stairs. We've got tall cabinets with things tucked in them. We've got lawn mowers and snow blowers and leaf blowers and cars. Making a humanoid robot is a much harder problem if you want a cool demo. If you actually want to deploy robots in billions of homes, it might just be the only answer.
They need a way to get onto counters, climb stairs, manipulate objects, et cetera. But all of the necessary capabilities do not need to be self-contained. Humans achieve their amazing flexibility through tool use, and so will robots. And in many cases those tools will be other robots. One robot could boost another onto the counter and then they both could get out of the way, unlike a robot large enough to reach up to the counter.
> The desire for humanoid robots is purely aesthetic and almost certainly suboptimal
Based on what? Do you think humans evolved into what we are based purely on aesthetic? Of course it may be suboptimal, but given enough time and ingenuity, so could literally everything be. Not sure that should stop anyone.
We might be at the beginning of a golden age for inventors. Robots of all shapes and sizes, with highly variable price points and specialization. Still, the first challenge for R2D2 is probably stairs.
> Could certainly slowly strangle you in the cabling
Reminds me of the engineer who accidentally strangled himself with his contraption:
> He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. He became entangled in the ropes and died of strangulation at the age of 55. However, he is better known for two of his other inventions: the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive to gasoline, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). - "The Man Who Accidentally Poisoned the Planet Twice": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
"Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled "My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles" when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. "
Why humanoid though. I’d want the most efficient design to complete the task at hand. Even if the thing looks like a hybrid of an octopus meets Freddy Krueger
The world is already designed for the humanoid for factor. Instead of designing 1001 specialized robots, why not design one that can already use the stuff we have lying around?
In non-murder tasks, humans are already obsolete. Our remaining economic value is solely alignment arbitrage, eg solving CAPTCHAs, murder, submitting 'human' papers, etc.
Given abliterated open models, Stringman is coming for our last remaining job!
In reality though, I think the cables will never work in a household situation. It's a interesting concept and I'm sure it was fun to build :) Makes me wonder what commercial application this would work for, I'm sure there's something out there that would benefit from this over waiting on humanoid tech
When I was 12, it was my job to pick up all the toys my much younger sibling had thrown around all house. I spent an hour every day doing that. I wish someone had gave something like this back then. It would save hundreds of hours
lol. I had much younger siblings too and have memories of pulling out the dust pan and broom if I had to clean after them. Luckily wasn’t my daily job, yikes!
Only widespread commercial application of cable robots I have seen is cameras in stadiums and concert venues.
I guess in most industrial use cases it makes more sense to have a robot stationary and move the parts around with conveyors. Doing it that way allows to pipeline and parallelize the manufacturing process. In contrast the large operating volume covered by cable robot needs to be served by single robot exclusively.
I've always thought they could be good in agriculture (can't pipeline the ground, after all). Dealing with wind would probably require a ~fully constrained 6 line system though.
A fourth cable would allow you to keep the other three constrained up high, with fourth being to lower. Would require some close looped control to eliminate swaying though.
Awesome! Though I'm thinking that you can do MUCH MUCH more things with 2 grippers than with one. Has all been tried in terms of weight management to instead of having a motor in the air with a gripper, putting two motors on each end corner of the ceiling that can pull a line tethered to a (in the air) pulley system that grasps? You could then have say 4 lines to pull (1 left grip, 1 right grip, 1 to adjust both gripper's distance, 1 to rotate the in the air platform).
I was actually just thinking about something like this this morning. Mainly because I was idly wondering if the kinematics would work with just 3 supporting cables. Intuitively, it seems like it should, but I haven't bothered to research it yet.
3 cables should work. Each cable length is a single parameter that defines a sphere around the mount, and the intersection of three spheres defines a point.
I suspect the reason they chose 4 is that 3 cables would limit you to a triangular region, so you’d only be able to access half the room.
You can join two of the cables together that come from each corner unit into one. each unit - still with an eye hole in another corner - moves the cable left or right. With the opposite corner unit, you can pick X,Y on the ceiling. I'd put the third cable in the grabber, which can be used to lower it to the floor.
Probably if you went this way, you'd want to measure each ceiling cable so it is about X+Y length, or otherwise the slack needs to be held somewhere.
This is one less actuator than their system if I understand them, and they are not counting the gripper itself.
Range of motion would be confined to the space beneath the triangle bounded by the three anchor points. Most spaces are rectangular, so bounding it to four corners would seem likely to give a more useful range of motion.
I was working on something similar, stoked to see this type of project making it out of the labs! The inspiration for most similar systems are industrial settings with automated bridge cranes which are fantastic, almost surgical when everything is symmetrical in the active environment.
Would more taut crossed wires and a descending line for the grabber (like the one at an arcade) solve the humans crossing wire path problem? Then it becomes separate x/y and z.
They compare it to a robotic arm, but they are a natural combination. Two arms, even, floating above it all, could scratch the dog, make breakfast, and maybe someday, fold a fitted sheet.
They designed the cables to go down into the room, instead of from the ceiling - seems like that is a deal breaker for most environments actually, because you need the whole room to have open space just to drop it to the floor all over.
They say they use 4 actuators, but if they only used 3, this problem would be solved.
Instead of independently controlling all four lines, you can join the lines leaving each corner unit and then just move the line left or right instead of reeling two different lines in and out. You still use the corner eye loops, and you use two cables that are X+Y in length. This allows you to pick a point on the ceiling. Then a third actuator and line in the gripper itself could lower itself to the floor.
If I understand what you're suggesting, wouldn't this result in a lot more swinging since the gripper would be suspended from a single point directly above it?
You seem to. That is a good point I hadn't considered - the tension from the sides holds it in place. Maybe we need to use a telescoping arm (which doesn't seem practical, I'm mostly joking). It might still work, but I imagine if you don't grab it on the first try, you may have to go back to the ceiling. And hope there are no strong drafts in the room.
EDIT: maybe lower it on three lines instead of one?
With the video, it is casually dropping things like clothes and toys into a bucket, so I'm not sure it would be a big deal. But you could also lower it via three lines instead of one, so there is something to counteract that.
I've been wanting to build a cable robot for Halloween which flys a ghost around the front yard with a vision system that detects people passing by and the ghost floats towards them and follows them.
I didn't understand if exactly this feature is available, but I think it would be a good idea to let the strings actually come off each motor completely when yanked hard. Interesting idea :)
It seems like the kind of thing you would set up to run when you are not in the room. The cables appear to stay taut and out of the way when it's not running.
Their example of it being used to move items between robotics stations in an automated workshop seems far more widely-applicable than the in-home solution, which I imagine is primarily aimed at assisting people with physical disabilities rather than those of us who can easily bend down and pick things up without pain or exhaustion.
Super smart but it's one of those ideas that hopefully gives someone else in this space another idea that leads to something that could mass scale and I would buy. Love the ingenuity though.
I built a big swing arm in my dorm, so I had two 40lb+ 21" CRT dangling free under some pulleys. Keyboard mouse space below. Then myself on a hammock chair, also swinging. Just a couple pieces of 2x4 reinforced with some angle iron, some door hinges, some cables & pulleys. It was really fun.
I've dreamed of having just a good 2d robot that can, like, hold a camera and pan. I saw Stringman here a couple of weeks ago & it's been hard to not thing about it! I don't own though, so, seems unlikely I'd commit, as alas the walls are not a simple white I can easily patch & paint. But so cool!
It's an interesting concept. If you scroll through the page you'll see it's actually pretty strong. The blanket pick up video should actually be the first video.
My fear is that a company that has the money to build and manufacture this will rip off the idea and use their resources to polish the concept. With a lot polish, this type of thing can be useful in certain environments.
Come on this is not up to the standard. Consumer product must be highly polished, it can be fully unfuncyional, but it needs to look good. This one is close to my 8 years old son's tape+random lego pieces...
Can it kill you? no probably not. The tension limit kicks in and lets the line out if you pull too hard.
Will it work in a room with a ceiling fan? usually its fine since you can lower the work area ceiling to exclude the fan.
Will it make my kids learn to not pick up after themselves? They never will anyways.
Rarely does a product announcement make me laugh out loud :)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_Is_All_You_Need)
There is an undeniable allure to the idea of a bipedal chassis realizing I'm an inefficient drain on corporate resources, then stabbing me to death while I sleep due to a minor Terms of Service violation.
The xiaomi-robotics-1 concept is but one that seems very doable and very near term.
https://robotics.xiaomi.com/xiaomi-robotics-1.html
We built the world for us, not for the most sensible robot.
So for generalized solutions, a good biped will have some advantages.
Based on what? Do you think humans evolved into what we are based purely on aesthetic? Of course it may be suboptimal, but given enough time and ingenuity, so could literally everything be. Not sure that should stop anyone.
A modern house is a very different environment to the savannas of Africa.
Or just some dude on remote. (Get in the robot, Shinji!)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIr0ZtVVnBA
Reminds me of the engineer who accidentally strangled himself with his contraption:
> He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. He became entangled in the ropes and died of strangulation at the age of 55. However, he is better known for two of his other inventions: the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive to gasoline, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). - "The Man Who Accidentally Poisoned the Planet Twice": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
"Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled "My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles" when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. "
Given abliterated open models, Stringman is coming for our last remaining job!
Robot picks up clothes -> this is stupid
Robot picks up kids toys -> this is brilliant
In reality though, I think the cables will never work in a household situation. It's a interesting concept and I'm sure it was fun to build :) Makes me wonder what commercial application this would work for, I'm sure there's something out there that would benefit from this over waiting on humanoid tech
I guess in most industrial use cases it makes more sense to have a robot stationary and move the parts around with conveyors. Doing it that way allows to pipeline and parallelize the manufacturing process. In contrast the large operating volume covered by cable robot needs to be served by single robot exclusively.
I wonder how it would handle something like a blanket or pillow on top of the toys
Robot can't open ikea drawers -> this is not gonna work
Reminded me of the Hangprinter https://github.com/tobbelobb/hangprinter which has been around for around for long time... always wanted to build one.
ETA: https://hangprinter.org/
https://www.maslowcnc.com/
basically a cable driven 4x8 sheet router.
Anyone?
I suspect the reason they chose 4 is that 3 cables would limit you to a triangular region, so you’d only be able to access half the room.
Probably if you went this way, you'd want to measure each ceiling cable so it is about X+Y length, or otherwise the slack needs to be held somewhere.
This is one less actuator than their system if I understand them, and they are not counting the gripper itself.
$800 is already super cheap, and the openness makes it likely you could implement even cheaper options yourself.
Would more taut crossed wires and a descending line for the grabber (like the one at an arcade) solve the humans crossing wire path problem? Then it becomes separate x/y and z.
I think the form factor is actually fine but the specs probably need a boost.
They say they use 4 actuators, but if they only used 3, this problem would be solved.
Instead of independently controlling all four lines, you can join the lines leaving each corner unit and then just move the line left or right instead of reeling two different lines in and out. You still use the corner eye loops, and you use two cables that are X+Y in length. This allows you to pick a point on the ceiling. Then a third actuator and line in the gripper itself could lower itself to the floor.
EDIT: maybe lower it on three lines instead of one?
Rigid objects would result in the gripper twisting, but the current design could offset some of that by pulling harder in one direction?
Their example of it being used to move items between robotics stations in an automated workshop seems far more widely-applicable than the in-home solution, which I imagine is primarily aimed at assisting people with physical disabilities rather than those of us who can easily bend down and pick things up without pain or exhaustion.
I built a big swing arm in my dorm, so I had two 40lb+ 21" CRT dangling free under some pulleys. Keyboard mouse space below. Then myself on a hammock chair, also swinging. Just a couple pieces of 2x4 reinforced with some angle iron, some door hinges, some cables & pulleys. It was really fun.
I've dreamed of having just a good 2d robot that can, like, hold a camera and pan. I saw Stringman here a couple of weeks ago & it's been hard to not thing about it! I don't own though, so, seems unlikely I'd commit, as alas the walls are not a simple white I can easily patch & paint. But so cool!
My fear is that a company that has the money to build and manufacture this will rip off the idea and use their resources to polish the concept. With a lot polish, this type of thing can be useful in certain environments.