Traditional science fiction would have us believe that some
robots want to watch the world burn, but reality shows us that there are plenty
of robots here to help it build! While
3-D printed buildings, from mud huts to museums, are rapidly becoming a hot
housing idea, there are several ‘bots that build in the most elementary (and
necessary) of manners: bricklaying.
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| Edgar Allen Poe could wall up some serious enemies with this baby. (Image courtesy techtimes.com.) |
According to Inhabitat.com, two new robots have been created
to assist humans in the laborious work of laying bricks for buildings. One of the robots, called Hadrian X (after
the ancient Roman wall-maestro himself) can stack up to 1,000 bricks per hours,
without fatigue or smoke breaks or any of those puny human traits that’d slow
down regular construction. Hadrian X is
truck-mounted for easy access to construction sites, and can be automated to
fulfill tasks without a foreman forcing it to.
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| And with way less potential for, you know, all those injuries incurred from falling off of walls. (Image courtest fbr.com.au.) |
The truck on which Hadrian X rests is loaded with pallets of
bricks, which part of the robot places on a conveyor belt. This enables the robot to easily spread
adhesive on the bricks. A 98-foot
retractable arm places the bricks as programmed by 3D CAD software, which is
accurate to a laser-guided degree.
Hadrian X is also capable of cutting, grinding, and milling bricks for a
better fit in the overall project.
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| It works about twice as fast as your average human meatbody. (Image courtesy 3ders.com.) |
Fastbrick Robotics founder Mark Pivac explained, “People have been laying bricks for about 6,000 years and ever since the industrial revolution, they have tried to automate the bricklaying process...We’re at a technological nexus where a few different technologies have got to the level where it’s now possible to do it, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Man, if the ancient Egyptians could see us now...
(Video courtesy Fastbrick Robotics.)
A similar building ‘bot, called the In-Situ Fabricator, is
the brainchild of architects and roboticists from Zurich. In-Situ is good for “non-standard” designs,
and also uses a mechanical arm to deliver its payload into projects. Working from a 3-D map of the site, In-Situ enables
architects to “really design the constriction directly,” according to
researcher Jonas Buchlii.
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| "One castle please, In Situ. And fortify that shit, I'm expecting a siege." (Image courtesy zbrella.com.) |
So, while we have many more people on the planet every day,
and there may not be enough jobs to go around, at least the robots will make
sure there’s plenty of housing! Now, to
ramp up the food production on those automated hydroponics farms…
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| You know who's really going to want a few of these machines soon... (Image courtesy vice.com.) |
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