from Hacker News

Humanoid construction robot installs drywall

by mavci on 10/2/18, 7:49 PM with 45 comments

• by TaylorAlexander on 10/2/18, 8:58 PM

  It’s a cool demo. We’re definitely getting better at making humanoids. I would guess this is a pretty “hard coded” demo designed to work for this exact room setup only.

  It’s going to be some time before we have the machine intelligence necessary to do enough for this robot to find a toolbox on its own, retrieve the necessary tools, unload the drywall from a truck, carry it to the room in question, install it, and complain about OSHA all autonomously.

  Still, I’ve never seen this before. We are making progress. Just keep in mind that an actual robot that would do this commercially is probably 20 years away. Someone else said 10-20, and I’m inclined to think 20+ is more realistic. As in, you hire robots for your construction because it’s cheaper/better.

• by ofrzeta on 10/2/18, 9:02 PM

  Doesn't make much sense to me. Apart from the fact that a humanoid could walk to the workplace – which it probably can't. For the actual task it would be much easier to use a non-humanoid with a carriage and several axes.

  Also it is a bit of a hoax because the whole humanoid reporting kind of suggests the robot is autonomous while one the image you can see a camera mounted on top of the wall and there's probably some huge computer in the back.

  EDIT: Here's some actual information about the project: https://www.aist.go.jp/aist_j/press_release/pr2018/pr2018092...

• by Animats on 10/2/18, 10:39 PM

  Very nice. I'd like to see the video with no breaks or cuts, though.

  It's interesting to see this done as a job for which the robot does not have enough manipulators. This would be easier with two hands to handle the board and one hand to apply the fasteners. On a production line, you'd have some way to keep the workpiece firmly in place while inserting fasteners. But they did it the hard way, with a humanoid form and only loose control over the workpiece. Which is what humans do. They often just push workpieces against a fixed object for guidance rather than go for full clamping.

• by felipemnoa on 10/2/18, 8:15 PM

  Slowly but surely we are getting there. This made me think of when digital cameras first came to market. Nobody took them seriously at first.

  I would not be surprised at all if within 10 or 20 years we have humanoid robots like these, but improved several orders of magnitude, available on the market.

  It will be another technological revolution. If it can do chores I will certainly be the first on line to buy my first model.

• by yardie on 10/2/18, 8:53 PM

  Installing drywall is unsurprisingly easy. Just that just needs a driver, a jack and a bucket of screws. And the sheets are large enough where you can cover a room with just a dozen. What eats up time is the taping and mudding. It's what sets an abject amateur from a pro.

• by purplezooey on 10/2/18, 8:14 PM

  But can it apply skip trowel... that is the question

• by stewfortier on 10/2/18, 11:09 PM

  Whenever I see humanoid robots, I’m always reminded of this TechLoaf joke: https://www.techloaf.io/2018/06/05/a-i-scores-sweet-summer-j...

• by madeuptempacct on 10/2/18, 10:39 PM

  These things will be in prod in 5-10 years. Same with autonomous cars. Goodbye 5-10% of all jobs.

  https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-by-industry-191...

• by chiph on 10/3/18, 12:52 AM

  So humans aren't the only ones that have problems with collated screw guns.

  (You need to apply firm pressure until the screw is driven. Which might not happen if the bit is worn, or the screw in the plastic tape didn't get aligned correctly, or one of many other problems that can happen)

• by TallGuyShort on 10/3/18, 1:33 AM

  Ah - but can the robot exceed time and budget estimates, do a shoddy job and then weasel it's way out of warranty obligations? Jobs are safe, everybody - there will be a few more unions who will lobby for bans on robotic drywallers because of some made up safety reason.