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Man Digs Out Basement Using Radio Controlled Toy Tractors
Phurge pointed out a story about a man with a fleet of remote control toys and a lot of patience. "Excavating a basement using professional machinery is nothing new but doing it with radio controlled (RC) scaled models is something unheard of. Welcome to the little big world of Joe, from Saskatchewan, Canada. For the past 7 years, Joe has been digging out his basement at an average annual rate of 8 to 9 cubic feet using nothing more than RC tractors and trucks. And we're talking about the whole nine yards here — he starts by transporting the excavator on an RC truck to the basement, unloads it, digs and uses other trucks to transfer the dirt up to the ground through a spiral ramp! He even has a miniature rock crusher! 'I feel quite fortunate to have stumbled onto this basement excavation idea, it's been a great past time to date dreaming up new ideas to tackle different projects along the way,' Joe wrote on the Scale4x4rc forums where he also posted pictures and videos of his feat."
Joe says that he plans to have his house built within the next 18 months, at which point his mother will move in upstairs and he will take up residence in the basement with his computer.
Well, at least now he'll be able to move out of his parents' basement.
A few RC trucks with front-mounted blowers could be fun :-)
Wish I had a basement now. /nerdgasm
Seriously, build small equipment the size of a riding lawn mower, but then use RC (wifi or bluetooth) to control them. With being small and cheap, it would be possible to dig out multiple parts of an area.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
if he could have automated the control with a camera and PC handling the RC control stuff it would have been a cool project. instead he coulda used a shovel and been done in a coupla weeks.
Next week, Joe plans to hold a conference with his star wars figurines to discuss possible reasons for his inability to attract a girl friend.
Average rate of 9 cubic feet per year X 7 years = 63 cubic feet.
That's a cube of dirt 4' x 4' x 4'.
Hardly sounds like 'excavating a basement'.
I'm guessing that the 9 cubic feet number is wrong. Maybe 9 square feet (with an undisclosed height of about 8'-10') for an annual average of 72-90 cubic feet and a final excavation of a room about 8' x 8'?
This type of do-it-yourself story is what we like to see on slashdot. Inspiring, nerdy, and a bit over the top.
Than I would be interested.
... this man should have been a bit more geeky and lazy at the same time by putting the camera and the RC controls on the Internet, then having remote volunteers run the RC toys to dig out his basement.
This gets me thinking I can probably get the internet to excavate and build me a large swimming pool, given about 50 RC bulldozers and a month of use of my web-server.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
My daughter has one of those vaccum robots. Comes out of its hiding hole, runs around the
house avoiding obstacles, or cleaning up those that were occupied on the first pass; avoids
stairs, doesn't suck in the dog's dick, and when its done, it parks itself back in its hiding
hole, where it is plugged in 'till the next time.
NOW, that technology should be put to digging up the basement. The little robots go around
digging, dump the dert into a conveyor and when done for the shift, park themselves. The
shift being defined as when the people of the house are awake or not home. Why bother
taking the dirt outside? Maybe, except for the stones and rocks, just wash the dirt down
the sink drain, after all, its a little bit at a time and the aquifers have at least 20 years to run.
A few of these digger bots, working 7 days a week for 16 hours or more a day, will probably
do the Canadian's job in 6 months. I am sure he didn't spend 16 hours a day digging. But
the bots can.
just watching the clips practically made me suicidal from boredom
It took two huge dumpsters to take the dirt away. It was done with no power equipment at all, in 2 days, by 4 guys.
It is a great idea though, I can imagine remote controlled smaller equipment being used by real contractors in the future.
It took two huge dumpsters to take the dirt away. It was done with no power equipment at all, in 2 days, by 4 guys. It is a great idea though, I can imagine remote controlled smaller equipment being used by real contractors in the future.
... welcome our new truckbotic overlords
He can call the Thunderbirds!
The headline of this article is a good example of why it is important to hyphenate adjective phrases.
Sincerely,
Your Third Grade Teacher
people have too much entertainment these days to go around being productive doing things like this.
My first thought was that he should have spent the first two years making this an automated robotics project, and then started digging. He may have completed sooner.
My second thought was that this guy will be fist in line to operate remote manipulators on the moon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_manipulator
My third thought was that we could have used this guy and some bigger RCs at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
The gentleman would achieve a much greater result if he got himself a scale model of the Bagger 288
Another method would be controls that work over the internet, then out-source all the hours to dig it out. I hear they got bots that grind gold on WOW, this is another avenue of profit. Its a lot safer then making another Skynet.
I refuse to RTFA or summary and am content with vizualizing young Timmy's mom giving him an ultimatum. "Either you clean up my basement right now, or you move out! I mean it young man! What am I saying? You're 45 years old, for crying out loud!" "But mom, it will take me a week at least to program the tractors!"
http://www.acetonestudio.com
It took two huge dumpsters to take the dirt away. It was done with no power equipment at all, in 2 days, by 4 guys.
It is a great idea though, I can imagine remote controlled smaller equipment being used by real contractors in the future.
Would it be easier to use a truck to take the dumpsters away?
--
Lawrence of Arabia would have trouble with such dust.
He could have charged good money to the neighbourhood kids to do this after school.
Or at the least experiment with the process now that he has the traditional methods down... maybe he can build and test out new excavation devices/technology using his small scale operation as a model.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I wish I had RC toys as functional and durable as those. I bet they aren't cheap, but what store even sells them? Nice job - that must have been a lot of fun!
It would have been awesome, if it was done by automatically controlled toys and some sort of positioning system.
Imagine to have those little robots to do the work for a month or two without any need for supervision. It would be a revolution for small scale constructions.
~ Your epSos.de
Some people have way too much time on their hands.
Dig it!
He should set up a website with some sort of interface control for the machines and live streaming video, then charge people to play with the toys remotely.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
If it can take out the garbage, I'll take one!
Table-ized A.I.
Soon construction and warehouse work will be outsourced to oversees workers using internet RC. It's inevitable.
Table-ized A.I.
Ladies and Gentleman, This man is not in a hurry.
So instead of taking a hit of a few weeks while contractors dig out the space he spends the next seven years driving miniature dump trucks and excavators around to accomplish the same and with no end in sight. I'm wondering what the point is here. Maybe for his next project he can attempt something similar with spoons.
Personally I found watching the video incredibly boring, but I guess that's why I'd never do something like this.
When I first read the summary I assumed he used sensors and some sort of AI to do this while he wasn't there, now that's something I could get behind, shit getting done while I'm gone.
Which leads me to wonder, why don't we have robots doing this sort of thing on a large scale?
Define the dimensions of the hole you want excavated and let them do the work in a tireless, efficient manner.
Leave one guy on site to make sure nothing goes wrong.
I am *so* not looking forward to retirement.
God bless you, Joe!
This is absolutely not about digging a basement.
The man simply likes playing with R/C earthmovers. And this is a way for him to keep on doing it during the five-month Canadian Winter, when everything is covered in snow. I doubt if he would care if it took 20 years to finish.
This is what some of the probes need to do that are sent to the moon and mars.
Dig out facilities. Assemble structures underground.
It could be tedious and take many years to finish but the robots have time. Who cares how long it takes. If it takes them ten years for a few dozen robots to build a moon base then so be it. And then we can send astronauts there and they can move right into a fully assembled and functioning habitat.
Ideally, we should give the machines the ability to manufacturer some of the building materials from local resources. But even if we have to send them everything it's a job best done over time by robots.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Don't want to use cubic meters? Use liters!
Cubic feet... useless.
I suppose this is one alternative to having sex.
that is 2.3 cubic meter. Or 3.5 tonnes of earth per year. Wonder how many batteries he burns through..
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
This is a great idea, just like those radio controlled choppers that build towers with blocks, this could also make excavation quite different in the future, allow all these nano tech devices/machines dig out the basement as per the requires specs, and then make some cement trucks to start pouring and even some other machines to even out and compact it, as it is cool it is also quite fast should you have hundreds of these machines instead of 1 or 2....this was the beta stage, now let's see what a fleet of 1000 can do and how long it will take them.
Constructacons Transform!
Dr. Shlock, is that you?
Dear Mr Joe,
Our company is looking for talented remote-control specialists.
We need dedicated operators for a long term commitment in R-C cleaning on large areas of confined space.
You are likely to have all qualifications required to join the main R-C team at our Fukushima-Daichi facility.
We're looking forward to hearing from you,
Tepco Director
(my emphasis)
My first though was how do the remote control toys dig into the dirt. Well looking at the video he first does the digging by hand using a pick and breaks up the larger pieces. The remote control vehicles are just used to haul the material. Hardly digging it out with nothing but remote control vehicles.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
every stinking person on the planet access to my browser
The next step is to rather than human control them, built in the logic to for self control. It would have to be coordinated between different machine types and job types, a sort of swarm communication. Then scale them up a bit, allow for remote repair of components seen to commonly ware out. Load them on a rocket, shoot to moon, and get building that moon base already! :)
He needs to setup each machine so it can be controlled via a webserver. People could log in and sign-on to a specific machine and operate it for a period of time, say an hour if others are in line for it, if not, they have it as long as they want. He could run it only when he's there so keep the mischief to a minimum.
... http://www.pcworld.com/article/131237/build_your_own_internetcontrolled_robots.html
There's already kits for it
...wait until the RC earthmovers want to unionize. The project would grind to a standstill, demanding maintenance insurance benefits and better wages, causing the employer to go bankrupt in the process -- putting them out of jobs altogether.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Wifi controlled RC project do exist you likely won't even have to pay for geeks to do the digging for you over the net. Hell you might even be able to charge gamers for the privilege. Not to mention selling advertisement the YouTube channel alone would likely become an overnight sensation with the right marketing you could turn a tidy profit.
this is probably the most notable thing to ever occur there.
Thunderbirds are go! I can see Thunderbird 2 being dispatched to rescue an operator trapped in a life threatening rockfall.
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