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.
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.
With abliterated open models solving CAPTCHAs, Stringman's coming for our last remaining jobs!
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
I wonder how it would handle something like a blanket or pillow on top of the toys
Reminded me of the Hangprinter https://github.com/tobbelobb/hangprinter which has been around for around for long time... always wanted to build one.
I think the form factor is actually fine but the specs probably need a boost.
basically a cable driven 4x8 sheet router.
Anyone?
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.
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.
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.
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.