It's an interesting concept, but I think I'll hold out for the full-body humanoid version.
There is an undeniable allure to the idea of a bipedal chassis realizing I'm an inefficient drain on corporate resources, then stabbing me to death while I sleep due to a minor Terms of Service violation.
> Could certainly slowly strangle you in the cabling
Reminds me of the engineer who accidentally strangled himself with his contraption:
> He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. He became entangled in the ropes and died of strangulation at the age of 55. However, he is better known for two of his other inventions: the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive to gasoline, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). - "The Man Who Accidentally Poisoned the Planet Twice": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
"Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled "My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles" when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. "
Why humanoid though. I’d want the most efficient design to complete the task at hand. Even if the thing looks like a hybrid of an octopus meets Freddy Krueger
In non-murder tasks, humans are already obsolete. Our remaining economic value is solely alignment arbitrage, eg solving CAPTCHAs, murder, submitting 'human' papers, etc.
Given abliterated open models, Stringman is coming for our last remaining job!
In reality though, I think the cables will never work in a household situation. It's a interesting concept and I'm sure it was fun to build :) Makes me wonder what commercial application this would work for, I'm sure there's something out there that would benefit from this over waiting on humanoid tech
When I was 12, it was my job to pick up all the toys my much younger sibling had thrown around all house. I spent an hour every day doing that. I wish someone had gave something like this back then. It would save hundreds of hours
lol. I had much younger siblings too and have memories of pulling out the dust pan and broom if I had to clean after them. Luckily wasn’t my daily job, yikes!
A fourth cable would allow you to keep the other three constrained up high, with fourth being to lower. Would require some close looped control to eliminate swaying though.
I don't like the way they designed the cables to go down into the room, instead of from the ceiling - seems like that is a deal breaker for most environments actually, because you need the whole room to have open space just to drop it to the floor all over.
They say they use 4 actuators, but if they only used 3, this problem would be solved.
Instead of independently controlling all four lines, you can join the lines leaving each corner unit and then just move the line left or right instead of reeling two different lines in and out. You still use the corner eye loops, and you use two cables that are X+Y in length. This allows you to pick a point on the ceiling. Then a third actuator and line in the gripper itself could lower itself to the floor.
If I understand what you're suggesting, wouldn't this result in a lot more swinging since the gripper would be suspended from a single point directly above it?
You seem to. That is a good point I hadn't considered - the tension from the sides holds it in place. Maybe we need to use a telescoping arm (which doesn't seem practical, I'm mostly joking). It might still work, but I imagine if you don't grab it on the first try, you may have to go back to the ceiling. And hope there are no strong drafts in the room.
EDIT: maybe lower it on three lines instead of one?
I was actually just thinking about something like this this morning. Mainly because I was idly wondering if the kinematics would work with just 3 supporting cables. Intuitively, it seems like it should, but I haven't bothered to research it yet.
You can join two of the cables together that come from each corner unit into one. each unit - still with an eye hole in another corner - moves the cable left or right. With the opposite corner unit, you can pick X,Y on the ceiling. I'd put the third cable in the grabber, which can be used to lower it to the floor.
Probably if you went this way, you'd want to measure each ceiling cable so it is about X+Y length, or otherwise the slack needs to be held somewhere.
This is one less actuator than their system if I understand them, and they are not counting the gripper itself.
3 cables should work. Each cable length is a single parameter that defines a sphere around the mount, and the intersection of three spheres defines a point.
I suspect the reason they chose 4 is that 3 cables would limit you to a triangular region, so you’d only be able to access half the room.
Range of motion would be confined to the space beneath the triangle bounded by the three anchor points. Most spaces are rectangular, so bounding it to four corners would seem likely to give a more useful range of motion.
I've been wanting to build a cable robot for Halloween which flys a ghost around the front yard with a vision system that detects people passing by and the ghost floats towards them and follows them.
I didn't understand if exactly this feature is available, but I think it would be a good idea to let the strings actually come off each motor completely when yanked hard. Interesting idea :)
Super smart but it's one of those ideas that hopefully gives someone else in this space another idea that leads to something that could mass scale and I would buy. Love the ingenuity though.
It's an interesting concept. If you scroll through the page you'll see it's actually pretty strong. The blanket pick up video should actually be the first video.
My fear is that a company that has the money to build and manufacture this will rip off the idea and use their resources to polish the concept. With a lot polish, this type of thing can be useful in certain environments.
Come on this is not up to the standard. Consumer product must be highly polished, it can be fully unfuncyional, but it needs to look good. This one is close to my 8 years old son's tape+random lego pieces...
It's an interesting concept, but I think I'll hold out for the full-body humanoid version.
There is an undeniable allure to the idea of a bipedal chassis realizing I'm an inefficient drain on corporate resources, then stabbing me to death while I sleep due to a minor Terms of Service violation.
I'm sure with a little ingenuity you could rig up stringman to stab you to death!
Getting it to be forceful enough would be a bit interesting. Could certainly slowly strangle you in the cabling.
Gravity assist...
Depending on how high your ceilings are, dropping items from height could be quite uncomfortable.
It could also strangle you super fast, see here; Red Cable Robots Video[1]
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIr0ZtVVnBA
> Could certainly slowly strangle you in the cabling
Reminds me of the engineer who accidentally strangled himself with his contraption:
> He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. He became entangled in the ropes and died of strangulation at the age of 55. However, he is better known for two of his other inventions: the tetraethyl lead (TEL) additive to gasoline, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). - "The Man Who Accidentally Poisoned the Planet Twice": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
That's straight out of Douglas Adams.
"Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled "My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles" when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. "
Poison tipped syringe!
This reads very futuramaesque
Slow and horrible, please.
Why humanoid though. I’d want the most efficient design to complete the task at hand. Even if the thing looks like a hybrid of an octopus meets Freddy Krueger
The difference is, I want the most efficient design that can complete every physical task that I can. That design is probably humanoid.
In non-murder tasks, humans are already obsolete. Our remaining economic value is solely alignment arbitrage, eg solving CAPTCHAs, murder, submitting 'human' papers, etc.
Given abliterated open models, Stringman is coming for our last remaining job!
My thoughts while watching the video
Robot picks up clothes -> this is stupid
Robot picks up kids toys -> this is brilliant
In reality though, I think the cables will never work in a household situation. It's a interesting concept and I'm sure it was fun to build :) Makes me wonder what commercial application this would work for, I'm sure there's something out there that would benefit from this over waiting on humanoid tech
When I was 12, it was my job to pick up all the toys my much younger sibling had thrown around all house. I spent an hour every day doing that. I wish someone had gave something like this back then. It would save hundreds of hours
lol. I had much younger siblings too and have memories of pulling out the dust pan and broom if I had to clean after them. Luckily wasn’t my daily job, yikes!
A fourth cable would allow you to keep the other three constrained up high, with fourth being to lower. Would require some close looped control to eliminate swaying though.
I'm thinking about the legos with chocolate milk spilled all over it, or the bowl of cereal sitting on top of the kids toys.
I wonder how it would handle something like a blanket or pillow on top of the toys
I don't like the way they designed the cables to go down into the room, instead of from the ceiling - seems like that is a deal breaker for most environments actually, because you need the whole room to have open space just to drop it to the floor all over.
They say they use 4 actuators, but if they only used 3, this problem would be solved.
Instead of independently controlling all four lines, you can join the lines leaving each corner unit and then just move the line left or right instead of reeling two different lines in and out. You still use the corner eye loops, and you use two cables that are X+Y in length. This allows you to pick a point on the ceiling. Then a third actuator and line in the gripper itself could lower itself to the floor.
If I understand what you're suggesting, wouldn't this result in a lot more swinging since the gripper would be suspended from a single point directly above it?
You seem to. That is a good point I hadn't considered - the tension from the sides holds it in place. Maybe we need to use a telescoping arm (which doesn't seem practical, I'm mostly joking). It might still work, but I imagine if you don't grab it on the first try, you may have to go back to the ceiling. And hope there are no strong drafts in the room.
EDIT: maybe lower it on three lines instead of one?
That too is a solvable problem if you have the sensors for it. You can critically damp or choose a motion profile to have essentially no swing.
How do you prevent having to grab things perfectly in their center of mass? (Because that requirement seems limiting)
Rigid objects would result in the gripper twisting, but the current design could offset some of that by pulling harder in one direction?
Awesome!!! I love projects like this.
Reminded me of the Hangprinter https://github.com/tobbelobb/hangprinter which has been around for around for long time... always wanted to build one.
ETA: https://hangprinter.org/
To those asking about more demanding tasks, I totally think this thing could scale up, reminds me of Maslow CNC (and predecessors):
https://www.maslowcnc.com/
basically a cable driven 4x8 sheet router.
I was actually just thinking about something like this this morning. Mainly because I was idly wondering if the kinematics would work with just 3 supporting cables. Intuitively, it seems like it should, but I haven't bothered to research it yet.
Anyone?
You can join two of the cables together that come from each corner unit into one. each unit - still with an eye hole in another corner - moves the cable left or right. With the opposite corner unit, you can pick X,Y on the ceiling. I'd put the third cable in the grabber, which can be used to lower it to the floor.
Probably if you went this way, you'd want to measure each ceiling cable so it is about X+Y length, or otherwise the slack needs to be held somewhere.
This is one less actuator than their system if I understand them, and they are not counting the gripper itself.
3 cables should work. Each cable length is a single parameter that defines a sphere around the mount, and the intersection of three spheres defines a point.
I suspect the reason they chose 4 is that 3 cables would limit you to a triangular region, so you’d only be able to access half the room.
Range of motion would be confined to the space beneath the triangle bounded by the three anchor points. Most spaces are rectangular, so bounding it to four corners would seem likely to give a more useful range of motion.
Perfect for your triangular rooms!
I've been wanting to build a cable robot for Halloween which flys a ghost around the front yard with a vision system that detects people passing by and the ghost floats towards them and follows them.
I love the ingenuity, though it's all fun and games until someone or something manages to yank down on one of the cables...
Probably sell more of them as expensive cat toys.
Can it make a bed? Actually, can it lift a comforter? Can it fold towels?
I think the form factor is actually fine but the specs probably need a boost.
These things are scalable... but I am not sure the PAF "partner acceptance factor" would pass depending on what you wanted to accomplish.
Realistically, this has one application: The kids' room. PAF might be higher than you think.
I didn't understand if exactly this feature is available, but I think it would be a good idea to let the strings actually come off each motor completely when yanked hard. Interesting idea :)
Very clever - and I love "tension is all you need"
Super smart but it's one of those ideas that hopefully gives someone else in this space another idea that leads to something that could mass scale and I would buy. Love the ingenuity though.
Looks good, but I am waiting for Droneman
It's an interesting concept. If you scroll through the page you'll see it's actually pretty strong. The blanket pick up video should actually be the first video.
My fear is that a company that has the money to build and manufacture this will rip off the idea and use their resources to polish the concept. With a lot polish, this type of thing can be useful in certain environments.
So, you fear someone else making it "useful in certain environments?"
Come on this is not up to the standard. Consumer product must be highly polished, it can be fully unfuncyional, but it needs to look good. This one is close to my 8 years old son's tape+random lego pieces...
get funding for this, it's worth a shot
LOL @ tension is all you need