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I made a robot to cut my hair with scissors [video]
- thdrdt 6y agoAround 10:25 the time-lapse.
- emrahcom 6y agovery nice work
- the_duke 6y agoClearly inferior to Simone Giertz' revolutionary hair cutting drone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQSh1MWIdVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQSh1MWIdVU Looks like it is a tad more practical (and functional), though...
- villgax 6y agoNever run with scissors!
- pcurve 6y agoIn the beginning I was afraid he was going to lose his ears... vacuum contraption reminds me of Flowbee on a 3d arm. I think it's impressive feat of engineering. I'm sure he can really perfect it collaborating with a stylist.
- jansan 6y agoFor those fellow readers who do not know the Flowbee, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK7_VSpTyVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK7_VSpTyVY Quote: "This ingenious device lets you give yourself and family perfect haircuts everytime!"
- davio 6y agoMy buddy's nickname in HS was Flowbee. His mom cut his hair. It actually looked good, I think it was the uniform nature of it that earned him the name.
- exhilaration 6y agoIf anyone else suddenly had a flashback of Wayne's World where the Flowbee was parodied, here's the clip you're looking for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LrJDt-fPQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LrJDt-fPQI
- js2 6y agoThis guy actually gives himself a decent haircut with one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4XKVEm11dI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4XKVEm11dI
- amINeolib 6y agoI was the complete opposite, maybe I'm a hater. The hard part isn't done. Controlling servos and motors is school level work. Combining it with 3D, a 400 level class. But it doesn't actually work. Saying "I can collaborate with a stylist" is not the bottleneck. It's the precision, the irregularities between clients, and obviously more. Its a cool YouTube video if you don't know design Engineering, but I was utterly disappointed and was surprised to see people praising him..
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoYeah that's a hater. It was a youtube project showing some Engineering skills applied to a difficult problem. Not a product to be shipped.
- amINeolib 6y agoYou are inspiring me to make my own YouTube channel now!
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoIt seems expensive. I understood YouTube had reduced payments to content providers. Can it really support that machine shop? Or is the guy independently wealthy?
- ghaff 6y agoTo a first approximation, no one should go into content creation (whether YouTube, a podcast, a book, a blog...) with the primary intent of making more than some token amount of money that makes driving for Uber seem like a pretty cushy gig. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it of course. Direct money (as opposed to supporting other activities) isn't really one of them though.
- y7 6y agoI'm guessing the majority of his income for these videos comes from Patreon, although with his current 167 subscribers at $5 or $12 per month it's not a living wage.
- aasasd 6y agoAs an old prediction about robotic hair cutters goes: — But people have different head shapes, what about that? — Well, initially they do.
- dredmorbius 6y agoThere's a similar device (possibly a Flowbee) used by the robot GERTY in Moon (2009). https://invidio.us/watch?v=84Ewj-BOBuc https://invidio.us/watch?v=84Ewj-BOBuc
- pmiller2 6y agoYeah, my only reaction to “robot wielding sharp instruments within tens of millimeters of my scalp” is “nope, nope, nope!”
- slig 6y agoHis channel is fantastic, be sure to check his other videos.
- thdrdt 6y agoI like his way of thinking: don't create new parts for your prototype all the time when they don't work but just fix them quickly so they will work (with tape, nails, glue and what not). And only when the prototype works create new parts that look good. First iterate, then make it look good.
- oriettaxx 6y agommh, it could be much much easier: why not using an air vacuum to have the hair perpendicular to the skull? :)
- amelius 6y agoOr use electrostatic energy to pull the hair away before cutting. But I think vacuuming would work best.
- Retric 6y agoIt does use a vacuum.
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- mbrameld 6y agoThat's what he did. You should watch the video, it's pretty entertaining!
- kiteloop 6y agoDid you not watch the video?
- oriettaxx 6y agoYes, you are perfectly right, I just saw part of it, missing completely the point. I think it would be much easier to just vacuum all hairs (or use electrostatic as suggested), so to have all hairs perpendicular to the skull, and then cut them out like you would cut your garden. If, and only if, hairs grow uniformly then by cutting 1cm of all hairs you will get the same (expensive, human made) cut you had X time ago :) I scrolled fast the video for an image of him with all hair up :) I did not see it and I superficially judged it.
- perseverance 6y agoThis is very cool actually. How often have we asked the barber to style our hair a particular way and then been disappointed.
- frabert 6y agoThis way you can be consistently disappointed! Jokes aside, the complexity of this kinds of applications is not easy to grasp until you see stuff like this
- Proven 6y agoBeta testing of shaving robots must look like the shaving scene from Airplane...
- nootropicat 6y agoYou could turn it into a startup There's definitely some reliable way to detect tissue (like ears) between the blades (capacitance?) so that a robot never cuts someone's ears off
- OJFord 6y agoSawStop does so with its table saws - instead of losing a finger or worse, they barely nick you (I've seen at least one report of it triggering and not even drawing blood).
- mooreed 6y agoThis made my day. Great video. incredible project, and funny too. Spoiler - he gets a robotically perfect mullet because the scissors can reach the lower neck line.
- drited 6y agoI wish he kept the Mullet. It truly was art.
- krick 6y agoI actually think this isn't that far from a legit product. It is just an early prototype, the approach seems to be totally working, current problems pretty easy to fix, so it kind of makes me surprised cheap robotic barbershops aren't a thing yet. (Attempts into jokes and acting in this video are painfully lame, though, it is much better when he just focuses on description of the actual project.)
- new2628 6y agoAs a counterpoint, I didn't care for the project itself so much and he had me cracking at the robot jokes.
- suby 6y agoLiability seems like a show stopper. This thing could hurt someone if something goes wrong, which seems likely if in use by the general population. I also think a lot of people tend to like their barber.
- VBprogrammer 6y agoHis channel has only been running for a few months and I think he's still finding his style. I too prefer it when he sticks to describing the prototypes and what he tried to get these things to work. None of that takes away from the fact that he's doing some really cool projects and I appreciate that for what it is. I almost wish he'd do like Colin Furze does and split it into a showcase video and a build video.
- runawaybottle 6y agoThat’s all I could think as well. I for one welcome our new robot hair cutters.
- amINeolib 6y agoIt's extremely far from a usable product. The fact he couldn't cut his own hair, means he can't cut different hair, or different styles, or different textures or head shapes. No testing completed either. This is really nothing more than a YouTube video. Source- Design Engineer
- Aardwolf 6y agoLet's hope it goes better than this: https://pbfcomics.com/comics/automatic-business/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/automatic-business/
- ricksharp 6y agoWow, amazing work - the skillset includes everything from machining parts (Using a plasma cutter) to custom 3D software (for simulating and debugging).
- sambroner 6y agoThis guy is a legend. Awesome videos. A few of them seem productizable in a way most DIY-er videos don't, albeit in a limited run capacity. He made a iPad lidar to "braille" converter that was really impressive, and I'm hopeful someone picks up the work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Au47gnXs0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Au47gnXs0w
- mfgrimm 6y agoYeah that one is amazing. Also the auto-correcting basketball backboard that makes your shot always go in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FycDx69px8U&t=457s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FycDx69px8U&t=457s
- ricksharp 6y agoEach of these projects is something I think I could probably figure out how to make in a year (but not really - I simply couldn't do the hardware side with my toolset). Then I look at his youtube videos and see he is putting out one of these videos each week. The level of productivity is insane. For example, in the basketball 2.0, he mentioned doing the 1.0 version a few weeks before. Then in a few weeks, he is doing something equivalent to Mark Rober's dart board (that took Mark 2 years with help) - while creating other videos. How is this possible?
- war1025 6y agoIt looks like he started his channel in March, so I'm guessing he just had a backlog of things he's been working on to make videos about.
- Assossa 6y agoMark Rober's dart board was much, much harder to create. The projectile was smaller and faster, and the board had to move to a much more precise location. Shane's backboard only has to track a normal speed basketball and has a decently sized margin of error. Not trying to discount Shane's work at all, it's still very impressive, but not nearly as difficult a problem as what Mark Rober solved.
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- bitdotdash 6y agoJust watched this last night with my wife. Was cracking up the whole time. The combination of cheesy humor and engineering chops is fantastic. I also enjoyed the one he did about making a basketball back board that ensures you always make the shot. Good stuff.
- LeroyJenkins19 6y agoThis is super cool!
- LeroyJenkins19 6y agoThis is so cool!
- _curious_ 6y agoThis is the second experiment/invention video of yours I've come across over the past year and equally enjoyable - keep up the great work!
- person_of_color 6y agoWoah, that’s one serious home laboratory.
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- kjhughes 6y agoHe should team up with Debbie Sterling, who built a hair washing robot, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAF1CaCykwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAF1CaCykwQ and start a salon.
- tomerico 6y agoMeta point: I think that this channel illustrates well the transition from personal blogs to youtube videos. If you go to his projects blog, https://shane.engineer/ https://shane.engineer/ you could see very detailed blog posts in the past that go deeply into the engineering, including code snippets. However, he only really go traction when starting to publish youtube videos, specifically youtube video with a clickbait subject (such as a self aiming basketball hoop). What YouTube provides is a highly competitive environment that provides creators with constant feedback. This allowed him to identify and his niche as he uploaded more videos. With YouTube, the exposure these projects receive is orders of magnitude higher, while empowering its creators to be self sustainable with ads (and sponsors, patreon, and merch) revenue. At the end of the day, I think it's a positive change, as it allows more people to create high quality content independently, and in a rewarding way (vs volunteering).
- mrfusion 6y agoIt sucks for people aren’t videogenic though.
- kiba 6y agoThere are tons of DIY video that didn't really feature the person's face, or isn't really necessary.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoBinging with Babish didn't even show his face until he was popular: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHA_jMfCvEnv-3kRjTCQXw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHA_jMfCvEnv-3kRjTCQXw He basically popularized a whole genre of "here are my rolled-up sleeved forearms doing things" video framing.
- ngngngng 6y agoHe has some really nice looking forearms though.
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- cdnsteve 6y agoPretty innovative first release that has major potential longer term as the product gets refined with possible industry disruption factor. Kudos to the creator!
- syntaxing 6y agoThat was an awesome video, I've been wanting to make something similar since I have been cutting my own hair. I am super envious of his workshop! Some of his designs are super neat like that "hair finger grabber". I love how its a cam mechanism.
- knodi123 6y agoMaybe a dumb question, but I just don't see - from a pure haircutting perspective, how is the scissor approach better than a flowbee? i.e., why not just have regular electric clippers inside the vacuum channel?
- kolinko 6y agoBecause that mames it mire difficult and fun, I guess :)
- knodi123 6y agothat's a perfectly valid answer, but it raises the additional question of why actual cheap haircut shops use scissors and fingers instead of a flowbee-style piece of equipment, too. :-)
- ghaff 6y agoBased on the very limited reading I've done about it: 1.) It only really works for certain styles, lengths, and types of hair 2.) Cheap haircut shops are presumably mostly competing with home haircuts so if you start doing 5 minute haircuts with some gadget, your customers may start going "hmm" and go off and buy the gadget to use at home.
- supernova87a 6y agoI had been thinking about rather than a robot, the thing I really need is actually just a camera and remote arms I control, that can help me cut the back of my head more accurately. If I could see the back of my head in front of me in a way that's not reversed in the mirror, and use my own hands as normal but they do the work back there, all problems would be solved... I don't need a smart robot, I just need an improved angle of using my own hands!
- glitcher 6y agoOr with Chell's Portal gun you could cut the back of your hair directly :)
- chansiky 6y agoI've been cutting my own hair for some time now, and I have to say that after a while you develop a certain level of proprioception for where the buzzer is at. I don't even look at the mirror for most of the time I'm cutting, only to check if I did it right. And almost always I know the instant I cut too much (because I get the same kind of cringe feeling you get right when you throw a basketball and know instantly that you missed). Then again, I have a "good enough" attitude for haircuts - but people are genuinely surprised when I tell them I cut my own hair. I think this is because I've gotten better at cutting my own head of hair than what a random barber would be capable of.
- grecy 6y ago> There is just something deeply satisfying about a mullet For anyone that has never had a mullet, I wholeheartedly agree. Gotta do it once in your life!
- jcmontx 6y agoThis guy makes me feel like an inferior mind
- slazaro 6y agoI always thought that a hair cutting robot should use that static electricity trick to make your hair stand up straight, then it would be a matter of having your head immobilized, and then the problem is way easier to solve in a safe way.
- jeffrallen 6y agoThis guy is totally insane. And his wife is a saint.
- alias_neo 6y agoIs nobody else going to comment on the disgraceful number of adverts? I got a couple of minutes in, and mid sentence a couple of unskippable ads interject, so I skip forwards bit and a couple more, again, miss sentence. It's annoying and I just gave up all interest in what might otherwise have been an interesting video.
- koziserek 6y agoWas there any ad there at all? [hint: uBlock origin]
- RandomBacon 6y agoMaybe everyone else is using an adblocker? I used Firefox uBlock Origin and didn't get any ads.
- alias_neo 6y agoInteresting point. I also use uBlock Origin (what sane person doesn't these days?) but I also browse HN primarily on mobile and the video opened in the app, where of course uBlock doesn't work. I even have a PiHole, also doesn't work for YouTube. I think it's the first time I've ever seen a YouTube video linked on HN.
- wiz21c 6y agoThat's absurd. The energy it takes to make such a machine, to maintain it, etc. is probably so much more than what it takes to have a human doing it. Plus the fact that the human will actually talk to me. I can understand that humanity looks forward to more automation. But in this case, it seems we loose so much. Plus the fact that, as with many manual/creative skills, a robot is nowhere close being able to work as good as a human. Just one more example of people who wrongly assimilate "innovation" to "progress".
- wtetzner 6y agoExcept that in many places you can't go to a human to cut your hair, because of COVID-19.
- qwertox 6y agoRobot: "Did you do anything fun this weekend?" Dude: "It was really sad, my dog died" Robot: "Oh well, cool"
- aiisjustanif 6y agoAs someone with an afro, this is nightmare fuel.
- robbrown451 6y agoOne more way coronavirus lockdown is a threat to a whole lot of trades. Once it is over, not only will a whole lot of people have figured out that it isn't all that hard to cut your own hair or your spouse/family member's hair, but we'll have figured out how to have robots do it. Same goes for a whole lot of other things. Education is probably going to take the biggest hit. I'm ok with this overall, but it's going to hurt a lot for some people.
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- polyanos 6y agoI think you are over selling it, sure we are gonna use some new tools but I don't think schools nor teachers are gonna disappear just yet. Education is more than just learning theories from a book/site/app/whatever.
- robbrown451 6y agoI didn't say disappear. But a lot of people are realizing that other approaches are valid as well. (often people who were much more closed minded about such things prior to lockdown)
- davidedicillo 6y agoYou sound like someone who hasn't cared about a child while trying to keep a full-time job. I bet many parents would support giving childcare/education professionals a raise after having to do the job themselves for a few months...
- robbrown451 6y agoI actually am one of those parents. Childcare and education are actually two different things. They tend to be combined into one in schools, but that isn't the only approach. There is also college education, which is a bit different. I could see many people choosing to simply pay for an institution to give them tests to prove they actually learned the material, while the actual learning is done independently. If you against this, well, you sound like someone who had their college paid for by their parents.