6 ms·

What you say makes sense - robotic cranes should be able to operate with heavier pieces, and will require less energy per piece placement. However, MAVs (micro

by mitko 16y ago

What you say makes sense - robotic cranes should be able to operate with heavier pieces, and will require less energy per piece placement. However, MAVs (micro air vehicles) could reach into places where cranes wouldn't be able - i.e. inside the building. Also you can have many more MAVs working at the same time than cranes, so MAVs might be able to considerably speed up the building process.

RodgerTheGreat 16y ago
There's no reason you can't combine these approaches. Using larger ground-based equipment to move girders and small, flying machines to do things like interior finishing makes a lot of sense.
- brudgers 16y ago
  A 4x8 sheet of 1/2" Gypsum board weighs nearly 60 pounds. A five gallon bucket of paint weighs about the same. A quadrotor couldn't finish an office because it would be too large to fit through the door...never mind the rotating blades.
  - jerf 16y ago
    You're right. But. As robotics becomes practical for building, we will not just replace human with robots. We will change how we build to make it easier to build with robots. For instance, I was noticing that while you might not want to use magnets for everything in your building, you could use them as a guide during that intermediate period where the robot can't just put things together, but they can be mostly correct. Magnets could be used to do things like guide pieces of wood together with a sheath containing powerful magnets, then the wood can screwed together, then the sheaths recovered and used again on some other bits of wood. Everything about building a house may change; for instance, a few years ago there were some news stories about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhryxVAsa4&eurl%20= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhryxVAsa4&eurl%20= only scaled up to human residence sizes, which is obviously not that tricky. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NSX/is_7_49/ai_n6149111/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NSX/is_7_49/ai_n6149... Cheap robot labor changes what the cheapest houses are. The biggest challenge may very well be keeping codes up to date. I suspect that the crossover may very well be swift when it happens; robots are improving very rapidly and when they cross the line where they are a more cost-effective way to build a house, they aren't going to sort of edge up to it and pull alongside it, they're going to blow right past it and keep going. Times are tough now but the next several decades still stand to be very interesting times, in all senses of the phrase. (Oh, and personally I don't think flying robots have much future in construction. The economics are nonsense, excepting cargo helicopters, which are regularly used for some purposes today. I'm more speaking in general.)
    - nitrogen 16y ago
      I suspect that protectionism will delay the "robot revolution" long past the time when it's technologically feasible. Building codes will be changed in some way to require human labor, building material suppliers will be pressured to "run out of" the parts needed by robot builders, etc. It's been my experience that few people outside of tech actually like the idea of robots doing anything that a human could do.
    - mturmon 16y ago
      It's funny, people have been talking about prefab houses (related, but not the same, as on-site robotic assembly) for years, but they still are a niche item. Despite all kinds of efforts to popularize them, such as: http://www.dwell.com/magazine/the-prefab-issue.html http://www.dwell.com/magazine/the-prefab-issue.html
- mitko 16y ago
  I absolutely agree with you - one should use the right tool(robot) for the right task.
lyime 16y ago
How about the combination for both. Perhaps there could be a 80/20 mix. It could very well make a lot more economic sense. It would seem like the cost vs moving weight ration would be much higher for MAVs compared to a crane.
mixmax 16y ago
They're also a lot easier to move and set up than cranes.
- qntm 16y ago
  Use the drones to build the cranes!
brudgers 16y ago
If robotic ground based cranes can't reach inside the building, then for the most part, neither can human workers [making similar adjustments for scale]. Robotic helicopters might have advantages where helicopters are currently used for construction. But those are limited cases. Generally, the duration of construction is determined by economics and weather. Flying robots probably don't provide an advantage on either front. There may be some applications for MAV's for the inspection of construction. But there's an off the shelf solution already availible [http://www.amazon.com/Air-Hogs-Hawk-Eye-Channel/dp/B00395EJRS http://www.amazon.com/Air-Hogs-Hawk-Eye-Channel/dp/B00395EJR...]

by mitko 16y ago

RodgerTheGreat 16y ago

There's no reason you can't combine these approaches. Using larger ground-based equipment to move girders and small, flying machines to do things like interior finishing makes a lot of sense.

brudgers 16y ago
A 4x8 sheet of 1/2" Gypsum board weighs nearly 60 pounds. A five gallon bucket of paint weighs about the same. A quadrotor couldn't finish an office because it would be too large to fit through the door...never mind the rotating blades.
- jerf 16y ago
  You're right. But. As robotics becomes practical for building, we will not just replace human with robots. We will change how we build to make it easier to build with robots. For instance, I was noticing that while you might not want to use magnets for everything in your building, you could use them as a guide during that intermediate period where the robot can't just put things together, but they can be mostly correct. Magnets could be used to do things like guide pieces of wood together with a sheath containing powerful magnets, then the wood can screwed together, then the sheaths recovered and used again on some other bits of wood. Everything about building a house may change; for instance, a few years ago there were some news stories about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhryxVAsa4&eurl%20= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhryxVAsa4&eurl%20= only scaled up to human residence sizes, which is obviously not that tricky. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NSX/is_7_49/ai_n6149111/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NSX/is_7_49/ai_n6149... Cheap robot labor changes what the cheapest houses are. The biggest challenge may very well be keeping codes up to date. I suspect that the crossover may very well be swift when it happens; robots are improving very rapidly and when they cross the line where they are a more cost-effective way to build a house, they aren't going to sort of edge up to it and pull alongside it, they're going to blow right past it and keep going. Times are tough now but the next several decades still stand to be very interesting times, in all senses of the phrase. (Oh, and personally I don't think flying robots have much future in construction. The economics are nonsense, excepting cargo helicopters, which are regularly used for some purposes today. I'm more speaking in general.)
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    I suspect that protectionism will delay the "robot revolution" long past the time when it's technologically feasible. Building codes will be changed in some way to require human labor, building material suppliers will be pressured to "run out of" the parts needed by robot builders, etc. It's been my experience that few people outside of tech actually like the idea of robots doing anything that a human could do.
  - mturmon 16y ago
    It's funny, people have been talking about prefab houses (related, but not the same, as on-site robotic assembly) for years, but they still are a niche item. Despite all kinds of efforts to popularize them, such as: http://www.dwell.com/magazine/the-prefab-issue.html http://www.dwell.com/magazine/the-prefab-issue.html
mitko 16y ago
I absolutely agree with you - one should use the right tool(robot) for the right task.

lyime 16y ago

How about the combination for both. Perhaps there could be a 80/20 mix. It could very well make a lot more economic sense. It would seem like the cost vs moving weight ration would be much higher for MAVs compared to a crane.

mixmax 16y ago

They're also a lot easier to move and set up than cranes.

qntm 16y ago
Use the drones to build the cranes!

brudgers 16y ago

If robotic ground based cranes can't reach inside the building, then for the most part, neither can human workers [making similar adjustments for scale]. Robotic helicopters might have advantages where helicopters are currently used for construction. But those are limited cases. Generally, the duration of construction is determined by economics and weather. Flying robots probably don't provide an advantage on either front. There may be some applications for MAV's for the inspection of construction. But there's an off the shelf solution already availible [http://www.amazon.com/Air-Hogs-Hawk-Eye-Channel/dp/B00395EJRS http://www.amazon.com/Air-Hogs-Hawk-Eye-Channel/dp/B00395EJR...]