10 ms·

I am a roboticist in a cheese factory

139 points by fern12 9y ago

ukulele 9y ago
This may be a dumb question, but at what point does a "machine" become a "robot"?
- barrkel 9y ago
  When does a group of grains turn into a heap? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox People can list any number of things: reactive behaviour, complexity of tasks, programmability, autonomy, anthropomorphic design (in part or whole). But really, whether we call it a robot or a generic machine depends on which probabilistic impulses any given instance trigger on the average person using the language. The criteria differ from person to person, the activation levels differ too, and the probability distribution can change over time also. The word is a cultural artifact and has no real meaning other than its relations with concepts in people's brains. Unlike, say, the word "two": that has very precise meaning independent of cultural concepts.
- zefhous 9y ago
  Here’s an entire podcast of short episodes that started out dedicated to this question. They’re now branched out to answering questions about definitions in general. https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/ https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/
- totalZero 9y ago
  I'd say a machine is a robot if, and only if, it demonstrates autonomy and mobility (either by locomotion of the whole apparatus, or by motion of a member thereof). Mobility is a classifier that helps distinguish robots from computers. Autonomy differentiates robots from piloted vehicles. Autonomy does not require inference, reasoning, or behavior choice.
  - knodi123 9y ago
    I'd say a robot is "a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer."
    - LoSboccacc 9y ago
      uhm, that would include a cnc lathe
      - WJW 9y ago
        So? Some of the high end ones, especially the one with arms for automated tool switching and stuff, I would definitely call robots.
      - wbl 9y ago
        Which replaced jigs, which replaced master machinists.
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Master machinists weren’t replaced, they learned how to write G code. The underlying fundemental knowledge is still extremely valuable.
      - dekhn 9y ago
        A fully automated CNC lathe with feedback is a robot.
- ars 9y ago
  When it senses the item being worked on, and adjusts accordingly. If it always does exactly the same thing, even if triggered, then I would call it a machine. So you could have a packing machine - each item to pack is always in the same place. Or a packing robot - it looks for the item to pack, and grabs it where it finds it. There are obviously some machines/robots that fall on the fuzzy line between those. For example if the machine is simply triggered by the arrival of an item to pack, it's kind of borderline. Basically: Robot = Machine + Sensors
  - taneq 9y ago
    So closed loop control qualifies a machine as a robot? I'd think it also needs some degree of generality, a robot arm can be reprogrammed for different tasks but something like a VSD cannot.
    - kilpikaarna 9y ago
      Yup, generality and reprogrammability would be my criterion as well. As for closed loop control, well maybe? Just about everything meant for industry uses servos, so there's a closed loop for positioning, but it won't necessarily know anything about the work itself. What's a VSD in this case? Variable Speed Drive?
      - taneq 9y ago
        Yeah, sorry - VSD = variable speed drive. They often have a built-in PID controller which takes an analog input and controls the motor speed accordingly, so for example you can run drive a pump at the required speed to produce a required flow rate.
    - dekhn 9y ago
      Yes, I'd say that a the essence of a robot is that it uses sensors to adjust its output actuators to achieve a goal.
      - AlotOfReading 9y ago
- mseebach 9y ago
  It seems, in practice, that a robot is what we abstractly imagine, but once implemented in the concrete, it's demystified and everybody goes, "Oh that? That's just a machine".
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    I didn't know that CPUs do branch prediction until Spectre, I'm work in the steel construction industry so my knowledge of the works of CPUs is limited. Anyway, I immediately though of this concept you've described: Artificial Intelligence is an abstract imagine, once implemented it's just "branch prediction", or some such.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      To be fair, I don’t think anyone working in CPUs ever claimed that branch prediction is AI.
      - Game_Ender 9y ago
        As a matter of fact the two do: [0]. It appears now common place to use some kind of machine learning system in a branch predictor. Which some people consider to be AI. 0 - http://www.electronicdesign.com/microprocessors/ai-helps-amd-s-ryzen-take-intel http://www.electronicdesign.com/microprocessors/ai-helps-amd...
- mandor 9y ago
  My definition: there is no clear limit, but there is a spectrum of ‘roboticity’ that corresponds to the spectrum of ‘versatility’. The more versatile a machine is, the more a robot it is. For instance, a blender is not versatile. But a cooking robot can do more things (it blends, but also cooks, mixes, etc.). This is why the cooking robot is more a robot than a blender. This is similar in industry. You have specialized machines, which can do a single thing. Industrial robots are more versatile because we can program them to achieve different task (e.g. when there is a new model of car). The ultimate robot would be as versatile as a human. This kind of humanoid would have the highest level of ‘roboticity’.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - andrew3726 9y ago
    Why would human versatility define the upper limit?
    - pryelluw 9y ago
      Great question. I think it stems from the origin of robotics itself. The desire to build a machine that is "alive" and get it to obey at all our commands. Sometimes I think that robots are slaves 2.0, and as such, they will have human traits.
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    > The more versatile a machine is, the more a robot it is. . . . Industrial robots are more versatile because we can program them to achieve different task (e.g. when there is a new model of car). Agreed. I actually think movies downplay "robot" arms too much, making them look like dumb graspers/movers when in fact they're incredibly versatile not only mechanically, but also programmatically (for example, being able to specify maximum forces, a center of mass, "up", and have it work with all of these parameters as efficiently as possible). For example, the Kuka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcl6n4LOJRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcl6n4LOJRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck8y1sl97BY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck8y1sl97BY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbjZiKAZP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbjZiKAZP4
- justonepost 9y ago
  Perhaps when it can carry out programmable tasks.
- Asooka 9y ago
  I use a very simple definition. All robots are machines, but not all machines are robots. A robot is an autonomous mechanical worker. That is, barring exceptional circumstances (e.g. less than 16 strings of cheese), something goes in the input and gets transformed in some good at the output without human intervention. A machine that replaces human labour.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > A machine that replaces human labour. We also need a word for a human that replaces machine labour. E.g. in the case of downtime, or when there is no funding to buy one. Perhaps "Mechanical Turk" would be that word. So that would mean that "robot" can be defined as its opposite.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  I think the real definition, which the author explicitly denies is "roughly human shaped". I assume that's why they referred to "arms" and "seeing" in an attempt to make their machines more robotic. As a fan of the "How It's Made" show, I'm fascinated by the systems in factories, which could be thought of as large machines themselves, even if some of the cogs are human beings doing repetitive tasks. Apparently though, people don't care about jobs being "stolen" by fork lift trucks or giant ovens but human shaped robots let your job get taken without even the smallest amount of rijigging and that makes the threat very real for some people.
- lifeisstillgood 9y ago
  I think enterprise / business terminology is heading towards "robot" is what replaces a person doing an existing job (which is why i am surprised to find the moral equivalent of perl scripts being called robots when reporting at board level) and what we might more commonly call AI is for as yet untried opportunities. but that might just be a limited pov
- dekhn 9y ago
  For me personally (I'm a hobbyist roboticist), when you put in sensors and use those for a closed control feedback loop to achieve an objective.
- 11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
  When it senses and responds to an unstructured environment, such as autonomous cars. If you can drop the device into an unstructured environment and it will be able to do something useful, it's a robot. If it operates in a fixed, defined environment, particularly if it's repetitious, it's automation. I'd guess the cheese robot is actually automation, by my definition.
froindt 9y ago
I come from an Industrial Engineering background and I really liked this quick overview of the job. The cost of robotic arms has dropped considerably in the last ~10 years. Glancing through Ebay quick, you can get tons of robotic arm models for less than $20,000. I anticipate many more processes getting automated in the next couple years especially with the rapid pace of computer vision improvements we're seeing. Like a lot of things, running a factory can look and sound easy until you get to actually doing it. Some things that can really trip up a factory: * Improper product from upstream processes (wrong dimensions, doesn't assemble, wrong physical properties, etc). * Unplanned downtime. * Being behind on production goals (meaning they won't stop the machine for you to install and test your new widget that might fix everything). * Management turning down many very useful OEM upgrades on a cost basis. * Imbalanced production rates. The bottleneck of the factory should be the primary focus for improvements. And for a fun fact: lubricant used in food production equipment must be safe for humans. For this reason, vegetable oil and similar products are often used.
- farnsworthy 9y ago
  It seems that most if not all of these issues have software development process equivalents…
  - froindt 9y ago
    I do some programming (unfortunately mostly VBA, the language of the non-technical business world) and spent 4 years of college working on robots for a competition with a bunch of mechanical engineers and computer engineers. I agree. I specifically compared software projects here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197767 And I outlined more manufacturing challenges here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15195869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15195869
  - merlincorey 9y ago
    Kanban boards didn't originate in software development, but super markets and car manufacturing[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban#Toyota%27s_Six_Rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban#Toyota%27s_Six_Rules
Theodores 9y ago
I worked in a cheese factory and I am familiar with all the tasks here, except we also churned the whey to get very salty butter which went into other products. We used pallets and when you would have a small tower built on these things you would have to do the clingfilm wrap to hold it all together. This was not a big process, it would take a couple of minutes to do and a forklift would need to access the pallet to take it away as soon as this was done. In this factory we made cheese on a truly industrial scale, however, the thought of getting a robot to do the clingfilm wrap would be anything but the first thing on the mind of the boss. So this cheese factory must be gigantic, up there with the gigafactory... So is this any good, this string cheese in packs from this vast industrial operation? Is there some conclusion to this where America ends up with just one mega-dairy factory somewhere in the Mid-West with nobody else able to compete against the robots? For things like clingfilm wrapping to be too hard for humans to do? I would like to see a different approach, a highly robotised but small scale cheese factory, on the back of a lorry. Something that can be taken to the farm so that we can have 'single farm' cheeses.
- lioeters 9y ago
  On this last point, I think the trend of small(er) scale fabrication at lower cost will eventually enable such micro-factories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab
madengr 9y ago
I had a tour of an incandescent light bulb factory in the 90’s. It was interesting seeing machines that were possibly 100 years old retrofitted with the latest programmable controllers.
andrewl 9y ago
This is a very accessible intro. And I was fascinated by the progression of her interests and education. One note: the link to her Instagram page at the bottom of the article is broken (there's an unneeded = at the end). The correct URL is: https://www.instagram.com/theladymachinist/ https://www.instagram.com/theladymachinist/
omilu 9y ago
Anyone have recommendations for an online mechatronics course/certification?
- criddell 9y ago
  Not online, but I think a lot of community colleges will have programs in automation and PLCs.

139 points by fern12 9y ago

ukulele 9y ago

This may be a dumb question, but at what point does a "machine" become a "robot"?

barrkel 9y ago
When does a group of grains turn into a heap? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox People can list any number of things: reactive behaviour, complexity of tasks, programmability, autonomy, anthropomorphic design (in part or whole). But really, whether we call it a robot or a generic machine depends on which probabilistic impulses any given instance trigger on the average person using the language. The criteria differ from person to person, the activation levels differ too, and the probability distribution can change over time also. The word is a cultural artifact and has no real meaning other than its relations with concepts in people's brains. Unlike, say, the word "two": that has very precise meaning independent of cultural concepts.
zefhous 9y ago
Here’s an entire podcast of short episodes that started out dedicated to this question. They’re now branched out to answering questions about definitions in general. https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/ https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/
totalZero 9y ago
I'd say a machine is a robot if, and only if, it demonstrates autonomy and mobility (either by locomotion of the whole apparatus, or by motion of a member thereof). Mobility is a classifier that helps distinguish robots from computers. Autonomy differentiates robots from piloted vehicles. Autonomy does not require inference, reasoning, or behavior choice.
- knodi123 9y ago
  I'd say a robot is "a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer."
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    uhm, that would include a cnc lathe
    - WJW 9y ago
      So? Some of the high end ones, especially the one with arms for automated tool switching and stuff, I would definitely call robots.
    - wbl 9y ago
      Which replaced jigs, which replaced master machinists.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Master machinists weren’t replaced, they learned how to write G code. The underlying fundemental knowledge is still extremely valuable.
    - dekhn 9y ago
      A fully automated CNC lathe with feedback is a robot.
ars 9y ago
When it senses the item being worked on, and adjusts accordingly. If it always does exactly the same thing, even if triggered, then I would call it a machine. So you could have a packing machine - each item to pack is always in the same place. Or a packing robot - it looks for the item to pack, and grabs it where it finds it. There are obviously some machines/robots that fall on the fuzzy line between those. For example if the machine is simply triggered by the arrival of an item to pack, it's kind of borderline. Basically: Robot = Machine + Sensors
- taneq 9y ago
  So closed loop control qualifies a machine as a robot? I'd think it also needs some degree of generality, a robot arm can be reprogrammed for different tasks but something like a VSD cannot.
  - kilpikaarna 9y ago
    Yup, generality and reprogrammability would be my criterion as well. As for closed loop control, well maybe? Just about everything meant for industry uses servos, so there's a closed loop for positioning, but it won't necessarily know anything about the work itself. What's a VSD in this case? Variable Speed Drive?
    - taneq 9y ago
      Yeah, sorry - VSD = variable speed drive. They often have a built-in PID controller which takes an analog input and controls the motor speed accordingly, so for example you can run drive a pump at the required speed to produce a required flow rate.
  - dekhn 9y ago
    Yes, I'd say that a the essence of a robot is that it uses sensors to adjust its output actuators to achieve a goal.
    - AlotOfReading 9y ago
mseebach 9y ago
It seems, in practice, that a robot is what we abstractly imagine, but once implemented in the concrete, it's demystified and everybody goes, "Oh that? That's just a machine".
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  I didn't know that CPUs do branch prediction until Spectre, I'm work in the steel construction industry so my knowledge of the works of CPUs is limited. Anyway, I immediately though of this concept you've described: Artificial Intelligence is an abstract imagine, once implemented it's just "branch prediction", or some such.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    To be fair, I don’t think anyone working in CPUs ever claimed that branch prediction is AI.
    - Game_Ender 9y ago
      As a matter of fact the two do: [0]. It appears now common place to use some kind of machine learning system in a branch predictor. Which some people consider to be AI. 0 - http://www.electronicdesign.com/microprocessors/ai-helps-amd-s-ryzen-take-intel http://www.electronicdesign.com/microprocessors/ai-helps-amd...
mandor 9y ago
My definition: there is no clear limit, but there is a spectrum of ‘roboticity’ that corresponds to the spectrum of ‘versatility’. The more versatile a machine is, the more a robot it is. For instance, a blender is not versatile. But a cooking robot can do more things (it blends, but also cooks, mixes, etc.). This is why the cooking robot is more a robot than a blender. This is similar in industry. You have specialized machines, which can do a single thing. Industrial robots are more versatile because we can program them to achieve different task (e.g. when there is a new model of car). The ultimate robot would be as versatile as a human. This kind of humanoid would have the highest level of ‘roboticity’.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- andrew3726 9y ago
  Why would human versatility define the upper limit?
  - pryelluw 9y ago
    Great question. I think it stems from the origin of robotics itself. The desire to build a machine that is "alive" and get it to obey at all our commands. Sometimes I think that robots are slaves 2.0, and as such, they will have human traits.
- sdrothrock 9y ago
  > The more versatile a machine is, the more a robot it is. . . . Industrial robots are more versatile because we can program them to achieve different task (e.g. when there is a new model of car). Agreed. I actually think movies downplay "robot" arms too much, making them look like dumb graspers/movers when in fact they're incredibly versatile not only mechanically, but also programmatically (for example, being able to specify maximum forces, a center of mass, "up", and have it work with all of these parameters as efficiently as possible). For example, the Kuka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcl6n4LOJRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcl6n4LOJRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck8y1sl97BY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck8y1sl97BY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbjZiKAZP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbjZiKAZP4
justonepost 9y ago
Perhaps when it can carry out programmable tasks.
Asooka 9y ago
I use a very simple definition. All robots are machines, but not all machines are robots. A robot is an autonomous mechanical worker. That is, barring exceptional circumstances (e.g. less than 16 strings of cheese), something goes in the input and gets transformed in some good at the output without human intervention. A machine that replaces human labour.
- amelius 9y ago
  > A machine that replaces human labour. We also need a word for a human that replaces machine labour. E.g. in the case of downtime, or when there is no funding to buy one. Perhaps "Mechanical Turk" would be that word. So that would mean that "robot" can be defined as its opposite.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
I think the real definition, which the author explicitly denies is "roughly human shaped". I assume that's why they referred to "arms" and "seeing" in an attempt to make their machines more robotic. As a fan of the "How It's Made" show, I'm fascinated by the systems in factories, which could be thought of as large machines themselves, even if some of the cogs are human beings doing repetitive tasks. Apparently though, people don't care about jobs being "stolen" by fork lift trucks or giant ovens but human shaped robots let your job get taken without even the smallest amount of rijigging and that makes the threat very real for some people.
lifeisstillgood 9y ago
I think enterprise / business terminology is heading towards "robot" is what replaces a person doing an existing job (which is why i am surprised to find the moral equivalent of perl scripts being called robots when reporting at board level) and what we might more commonly call AI is for as yet untried opportunities. but that might just be a limited pov
dekhn 9y ago
For me personally (I'm a hobbyist roboticist), when you put in sensors and use those for a closed control feedback loop to achieve an objective.
11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
When it senses and responds to an unstructured environment, such as autonomous cars. If you can drop the device into an unstructured environment and it will be able to do something useful, it's a robot. If it operates in a fixed, defined environment, particularly if it's repetitious, it's automation. I'd guess the cheese robot is actually automation, by my definition.

froindt 9y ago

I come from an Industrial Engineering background and I really liked this quick overview of the job. The cost of robotic arms has dropped considerably in the last ~10 years. Glancing through Ebay quick, you can get tons of robotic arm models for less than $20,000. I anticipate many more processes getting automated in the next couple years especially with the rapid pace of computer vision improvements we're seeing. Like a lot of things, running a factory can look and sound easy until you get to actually doing it. Some things that can really trip up a factory: * Improper product from upstream processes (wrong dimensions, doesn't assemble, wrong physical properties, etc). * Unplanned downtime. * Being behind on production goals (meaning they won't stop the machine for you to install and test your new widget that might fix everything). * Management turning down many very useful OEM upgrades on a cost basis. * Imbalanced production rates. The bottleneck of the factory should be the primary focus for improvements. And for a fun fact: lubricant used in food production equipment must be safe for humans. For this reason, vegetable oil and similar products are often used.

farnsworthy 9y ago
It seems that most if not all of these issues have software development process equivalents…
- froindt 9y ago
  I do some programming (unfortunately mostly VBA, the language of the non-technical business world) and spent 4 years of college working on robots for a competition with a bunch of mechanical engineers and computer engineers. I agree. I specifically compared software projects here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197767 And I outlined more manufacturing challenges here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15195869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15195869
- merlincorey 9y ago
  Kanban boards didn't originate in software development, but super markets and car manufacturing[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban#Toyota%27s_Six_Rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban#Toyota%27s_Six_Rules

Theodores 9y ago

I worked in a cheese factory and I am familiar with all the tasks here, except we also churned the whey to get very salty butter which went into other products. We used pallets and when you would have a small tower built on these things you would have to do the clingfilm wrap to hold it all together. This was not a big process, it would take a couple of minutes to do and a forklift would need to access the pallet to take it away as soon as this was done. In this factory we made cheese on a truly industrial scale, however, the thought of getting a robot to do the clingfilm wrap would be anything but the first thing on the mind of the boss. So this cheese factory must be gigantic, up there with the gigafactory... So is this any good, this string cheese in packs from this vast industrial operation? Is there some conclusion to this where America ends up with just one mega-dairy factory somewhere in the Mid-West with nobody else able to compete against the robots? For things like clingfilm wrapping to be too hard for humans to do? I would like to see a different approach, a highly robotised but small scale cheese factory, on the back of a lorry. Something that can be taken to the farm so that we can have 'single farm' cheeses.

lioeters 9y ago
On this last point, I think the trend of small(er) scale fabrication at lower cost will eventually enable such micro-factories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab

madengr 9y ago

I had a tour of an incandescent light bulb factory in the 90’s. It was interesting seeing machines that were possibly 100 years old retrofitted with the latest programmable controllers.

andrewl 9y ago

This is a very accessible intro. And I was fascinated by the progression of her interests and education. One note: the link to her Instagram page at the bottom of the article is broken (there's an unneeded = at the end). The correct URL is: https://www.instagram.com/theladymachinist/ https://www.instagram.com/theladymachinist/

omilu 9y ago

Anyone have recommendations for an online mechatronics course/certification?

criddell 9y ago
Not online, but I think a lot of community colleges will have programs in automation and PLCs.