5 ms·
The geek in me is drooling, but are there any practical home uses others have found for robotic arms? Hacking is always more fun with a good project
by isquaredr 3y ago
The geek in me is drooling, but are there any practical home uses others have found for robotic arms? Hacking is always more fun with a good project
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoAn impractical use would be to have a few of them replace monitor arms in a multi monitor setup. You could then rapidly switch between a few configurations. Also, have one to stir pasta in the kitchen.
- Havoc 3y agoI doubt this is strong enough to carry a screen
- etrautmann 3y agoPasta is one of the few things you’re not supposed to stir while cooking?
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoI think you should stir it occasionally. It might depend on the pasta, though. https://www.thekitchn.com/kitchen-mysteries-why-stir-pas-112147 https://www.thekitchn.com/kitchen-mysteries-why-stir-pas-112...
- vasco 3y agoMulti monitor robot arm stands would do some cool things. An automated rotating sequence when you boot up would feel like a scifi movie.
- throwaway38375 3y agoOn the topic of automatically stirring pasta, I saw this the other day! https://www.amazon.com/StirMATE-Automatic-Variable-Self-Adjusting-Powerful/dp/B076HH4WZM/ https://www.amazon.com/StirMATE-Automatic-Variable-Self-Adju...
- adolph 3y agoThat is interesting and Amazon has a great algo for matching it to laboratory equipment consisting of hot plates and magnetic stirrers.
- PeterisP 3y agoAt 1.4 Nm torque, the main motors would likely struggle manipulating a 0.5 kg item, they aren't strong enough to hold a monitor.
- actionfromafar 3y agoSacrifice speed and add a gearbox?
- greggsy 3y agoI’d use it to pick through and sort the massive pile of Lego my children leave behind after an Easter long weekend. Seems trivial to do identification based on the high quality corpus of block databases. Wouldn’t have to be super quick - you could just leave it running overnight. I’m sure someone’s written an interesting paper on the ideal sorting algorithm too (i.e. large things > small things vs. ‘just pick up and place the nearest thing’.) I would personally just get it to sort them into basic sets before placing the trays back in their goddamn drawers.
- IshKebab 3y agoPicking up and sorting Lego with a robot arm is pretty much a state of the art research project (a few years ago at least), not a hobby project.
- Grimblewald 3y agoDepends on your defenition of hobby and if the hobby as part of it being enjoyable needs to produce something tangible in the short term. Following sota research, tinkering, trying new things in a field unrelated to your day job can be a fullfilling hobby.
- Terr_ 3y agoI imagine it is strongly affected by whether the pile is already decomposed into individual bricks or not. The analysis and disassembly of a combined set of bricks can frustrate even human eyes, brains, and fingertips.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoThe devil is in the details. In theory everything is trivial with enough SW dev hubris ;) Even just the path planning towards the block to ensure good grip and pick up is not a simple task. Consider all the block shapes, possible orientations, collisions..
- otikik 3y agoMy impression is that the fastest/easiest way to do it would be putting all the pieces inside hopper with the selector at the bottom. Perhaps using compressed air to push the falling pieces into different containers as they fall. I believe there’s already something like that in produce factories, separating vegetables by state/size.
- Animats 3y agoNot much. I have a UArm on my desk, which is a lot like this one but with cheaper servos. It was too inaccurate to use for much of anything. I built a force-feedback sensor for it out of a 3D mouse. Reasonable idea, but not stiff enougn for the application.
- mattlondon 3y agoHolding a water pistol to shoot at foxes in my garden might be useful. They other humane deterrents (ultrasonics etc) don't work.
- cocoflunchy 3y agoYou don't really need a robot arm for this though... Also on my list of projects for cats :)
- mattlondon 3y agoFuture proofing for when they evolve into flying foxes! You'll need the extra degrees of freedom
- eichin 2y agoFrom over a decade ago: https://us.pycon.org/2012/schedule/presentation/267/ https://us.pycon.org/2012/schedule/presentation/267/ (with just a pair of motors to point squirt gun at specific angles.) One of the (many) cases where a robot arm would be more general without being in any way better :-)
- boffinAudio 3y agoRoboexotica is screaming for a set of these arms to create a production line: http://roboexotica.at/ http://roboexotica.at/
- euroderf 3y agoDrinks mixer! Line up the booze bottles and other stuff. No need for brute strength. Tolerances of one or two millimeters are mostly fine.
- Ekaros 3y agoThis actually sounds to me as bit complicated. As you need to adjust angle for each pour from a bottle. And then there might be different viscosities involved with some bottles...
- euroderf 2y agoAngle would benefit from visual recog - shape of bottle top, shape of bottle body. Viscosities - probably finding a booze's sugar content online would be 90+% of it.
- fransje26 3y ago> but are there any practical home uses others have found for robotic arms? Hacking is always more fun with a good project. A reader of this thread that had a temporary disability posted some ideas about practical uses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903953