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I'm not trying to be too much of an ass... but is anyone really surprised? The whole thing seemed like a gag from the beginning. Was it really taken seriously?

I'm not trying to be too much of an ass... but is anyone really surprised? The whole thing seemed like a gag from the beginning. Was it really taken seriously? Reading that it has problems with soft dirt is kind of sad too. Plus, it took them $2.5m for just the robot? I hope that's incorrect in the article and those funds include business expenses too. Because that's really bad management... wait, it all makes more sense now.

2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
I’m surprised this was a company. I thought it was some one off build for a bit of fun.
- corodra 7y ago
  Right? I kind of feel like I'm taking crazy pills finding out this was meant as a serious company.
  - madamelic 7y ago
    At least it wasn't VC-funded. Can't wait for the RFS for "giant robots"
- ohazi 7y ago
  Think of it like the company behind a monster truck team. The revenue and (maybe) profit comes from spectator shows / events / competitions against Japan. It definitely wasn't supposed to be "Giant Robot, the startup."
LeifCarrotson 7y ago
As someone extensively familiar with Parker hydraulics and custom machine building (for industrial automation, not fighting robots...), $2.5m is not that bad. I spent about 1/3rd of that to build up a shaker table for heavy equipment, with nothing more than a 120HP electric hydraulic power pack and a pair of 120mm Parker hydraulic actuators, mechanical fabrication, civil engineering, associated servovalves, motion controllers, sensors, PLC/PC controls...etc. That was a static installation, not a vehicle, which costs more. If I had to quote a competitor machine with a well-defined spec - this had none, so you're basically paying for a couple revisions of the design - I'd figure on the order of 1200 hours of mechanical engineering/CAD at $80/hr, 1600 hours of electrical engineering/programming at $100/hr, 2000 hours of skilled fabricator/machinist time at $40/hr, plus project management/purchasing/legal and other overhead, which puts you at close to $1M just in labor. It would be challenging to source the industrial lego that powers this thing for less than $1.5M; I expect that they're charging nothing for some of their labor, using cheaper materials (eg. start with used digger tracks instead of buying something off the shelf) to make this come out as low as $2.5M.
imtringued 7y ago
The closest competitor I have found has costs of more than 1.4 million dollars just for one arm. https://youtu.be/3ldJswGpkjY?t=540 https://youtu.be/3ldJswGpkjY?t=540

2muchcoffeeman 7y ago

I’m surprised this was a company. I thought it was some one off build for a bit of fun.

corodra 7y ago
Right? I kind of feel like I'm taking crazy pills finding out this was meant as a serious company.
- madamelic 7y ago
  At least it wasn't VC-funded. Can't wait for the RFS for "giant robots"
ohazi 7y ago
Think of it like the company behind a monster truck team. The revenue and (maybe) profit comes from spectator shows / events / competitions against Japan. It definitely wasn't supposed to be "Giant Robot, the startup."

LeifCarrotson 7y ago

As someone extensively familiar with Parker hydraulics and custom machine building (for industrial automation, not fighting robots...), $2.5m is not that bad. I spent about 1/3rd of that to build up a shaker table for heavy equipment, with nothing more than a 120HP electric hydraulic power pack and a pair of 120mm Parker hydraulic actuators, mechanical fabrication, civil engineering, associated servovalves, motion controllers, sensors, PLC/PC controls...etc. That was a static installation, not a vehicle, which costs more. If I had to quote a competitor machine with a well-defined spec - this had none, so you're basically paying for a couple revisions of the design - I'd figure on the order of 1200 hours of mechanical engineering/CAD at $80/hr, 1600 hours of electrical engineering/programming at $100/hr, 2000 hours of skilled fabricator/machinist time at $40/hr, plus project management/purchasing/legal and other overhead, which puts you at close to $1M just in labor. It would be challenging to source the industrial lego that powers this thing for less than $1.5M; I expect that they're charging nothing for some of their labor, using cheaper materials (eg. start with used digger tracks instead of buying something off the shelf) to make this come out as low as $2.5M.

imtringued 7y ago

The closest competitor I have found has costs of more than 1.4 million dollars just for one arm. https://youtu.be/3ldJswGpkjY?t=540 https://youtu.be/3ldJswGpkjY?t=540