Slashdot Mirror
The House Building Machine
thelastguardian writes "With 400,000 American construction workers injured each year, and a typical American house takeing at least six months to complete, house building had been the same tiring gritty job for 20,000 years. For this problem, Behrokh Khoshnevis has a solution: A Robotic House Builder. An eight feet tall and six feet wide phototype house building machine, with ceramic mixing ability/computer control back-end, is currently building solid walls inside University of Southern California. To add to the excitement, even NASA is evaluating the machine as a builder on Moon using moondust- Who said moondust is useless?"
Now if we can get machines to mine automated and then use them to construct factories that can create mining machines, our potential is incredible. Exponential growth by automated mining/construction is the future of space colonization.
In my hometown, we have a corporation called Hobart. Back in the day (1930s-1950s) they made steel houses. They were all one piece as the left the shop, and were set up on site. Theres still about 15 of them left. It was the first time we ever got international headlines. These were no trailer homes either... think two story three bedroom / kitchen / living room. The only problem is once you get a crappy owner they can start to rust, and then you have to side it. It should be illegal.
sig: Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not
... with animations ... (up o 49MB :)
Quote:
Contour Crafting is a fabrication process by which large-scale parts can be fabricated quickly in a layer-by-layer fashion. The chief advantages of the Contour Crafting process over existing technologies are the superior surface finish that is realized and the greatly enhanced speed of fabrication. The success of the technology stems from the automated use of age-old tools normally wielded by hand, combined with conventional robotics and an innovative approach to building three-dimensional objects that allows rapid fabrication times. Actual scale civil structures such as houses may be built by CC. Contour Crafting has been under development under support from National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Too funny? I'm not sure how much more insulting you could get. It isn't like all poor people are violent. Maybe they're just that way to you (and I really don't wonder why). Go back to your gated community.
It'd be cooler if they'd find some people in that part of town who could beta-test the whole process, and live in a few of these houses. Like an automated Habitat for Humanity or something.
What if someone hacks into it and I wake up in the morning to find everything walled up? Computer controlled robots building stuff all over the place sounds scary.
Still, with the help of a few gold blocks those unemployeed builders could have a great career as Lode Runners, destroying all the bad walls for us.
Haha! I'm laughing at the fact that people would think that way at all and live in gated communities period.
Having attended SC, it's a little surreal, and a little too elitist for my taste.
Nice misinterpretation though.
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No, once automation takes over there will be no supply part in the supply vs. demand equations. The economy will shrink while the quality of living increases. The only thing of value will be ideas. Computer programmers, CAD developers, engineers, etc. will be the ones who control the world. They will put their ideas into a computer and the machines will make it so. Anyone who cannot contribute in this way will live a life of comfortable squalor (if you think that having almost any material possession that you want but not being able to do anything useful with your life is squalor).
how does it lay down windows?
I'm hoping the day when humans have no jobs is soon. It's not like we're all going to go poor or something... If no one has a job then no one has money... but theoretically we also wouldn't have to pay for anything since robots would be doing all the work.
I Love Alberta Beef
I'd really love to believe that, but I don't think the powers that be will let that come true.
Cept they are destroying the economy by taking those jobs. It's difficult to afford to pay reasonable salries when all your competitors fired their legal workers and now pay less than minimum wage to illegals, and when noone is hiring you unless you're an illegal it makes it damn difficult to get a job.
But how would you afford the mortgage if the price of the house was inflated 20% because they use only legal union workers ?
I'm not really trying to argue this way is right or that way is wrong but just point out how complex this situation is. On top of all of that is the fear mongering about the "Al Queda" infiltrating their way into America through the Mexican/U.S. border..
We enjoying a great housing market because of cheap migrant labour, should we not take advantage of it while it's there ?
If I understand you correctly (I may not since I'm an "average slashdotter" as you put it), then they new society you invision terrifies me.
According to your plan, the more brain cycles you provide the richer you get... Unfortunately, it will be the stupid people getting richer, the unimaginative dull minded people... and since money gets you power, it will be these people in power... controlling the robot armies. As we all know, stupid people leading large armies is not a good thing.
I Love Alberta Beef
Weren't we all meant to be wondering what to do with all our spare time and excess money now, according to the happy predictions of the 1950's?
Comfortable squalor may well beat being on call all the time and always striving for cheaper & faster...
Edison was building "pre-fab" concrete homes in 1907. But his ultimate design was singularly ugly and dispiriting even as low-income housing. The simplest of household repairs and remodeling were a nightmare. Why Dolores Chumsky Hates Thomas Edison
In the early 1900's the Sears Catalog used to sell build-it-yourself houses for around $2000. A lot of them are still inhabited.