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Bricklaying Robots and Exoskeletons Are the Future of the Construction Industry (vice.com)
David Silverberg reports via Motherboard: One of the most staid and digitally conservative industries is on the verge of a robotic makeover. The global construction space isn't known for ushering new tech into their workforce, but a painful labour shortage, calls for increased worker safety and more low-cost housing, and the need to catch up to other tech-savvy sectors is giving upstarts in robotics and exoskeletons their big moment. The construction industry isn't immune to this phenomenon, but robots and humans may increasingly work hand-in-hand in industrial sectors, according to Brian Turmail, senior executive director of public affairs at the Associated General Contractors of America. This is especially true when the construction industry en masse uses exoskeleton vests, which aim to assist workers with heavy loads and thus reduce their risk of injury.
The Hadrian X is a bricklaying robot courtesy Australia's Fastbrick Robotics, which uses its 30-meter metal arm to lay bricks at a rate of 1,000 bricks per hour, compared to a human worker's average of 1,000 a day. Due for release in late 2017, Hadrian X can read a 3D CAD model of the house and then it follows those instructions precisely, working day and night. New York-based Construction Robotics has also developed its take on a bricklaying robot. SAM can lay 3,000 bricks a day, and the company said it's about time this industry got a whiff of the change almost every other market has been seeing.
The Hadrian X is a bricklaying robot courtesy Australia's Fastbrick Robotics, which uses its 30-meter metal arm to lay bricks at a rate of 1,000 bricks per hour, compared to a human worker's average of 1,000 a day. Due for release in late 2017, Hadrian X can read a 3D CAD model of the house and then it follows those instructions precisely, working day and night. New York-based Construction Robotics has also developed its take on a bricklaying robot. SAM can lay 3,000 bricks a day, and the company said it's about time this industry got a whiff of the change almost every other market has been seeing.
3000 per day. While his Australian cousin lays 24000 per day.
I ain't afraid of Virginia Woolfe.
There's no shortage of workers. There are lots of people around who'd be willing to do this work. It's a shortage of employers willing to pay the wage required to properly compensate people for doing the work. Pay a proper wage and this "labor shortage" will disappear immediately.
"Been hurt at work? Did you exoskeleton suddenly fail when you were lifting 200kg of blocks above your head 5 floors up? Now paralysed and being fed via a tube? Give Constructive Legal a call on ....."
etc.
The video in the article shows a rather large device laying bricks according to plan. Fine.. but bricks alone are more or less useless without mortar. And in most cases (at least in my region) bricks are a facing on wood frame construction over a poured concrete basement. This robot doesn't look like it can work on anything but an empty slab of concrete, limiting it to small industrial unit builds.
Now, the second bricklayer robot linked to from the main article... that looks more interesting. It lays bricks against an existing surface, it's smaller, and it appears to handle mortar.
I'm still more keen on the giant 3D printers that print layers of concrete, though as you'd expect there's still a long way to go before they can handle ceilings and other structures with large areas lacking support while setting.
Not much bricklaying in Silicon Valley. Will the robot be able to lay 1,000 cinder blocks, place horizontal rebars every other course and tie them to the vertical rebars, and then grout the wall?
Seismic activity is increasing for reasons both man-made and natural. Just what we need, more brick facades!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
To dole out cash payments to building inspectors to pass their work. The construction industry, developers, and government inspectors are all very corrupt.
That's a pretty cool robot but I have to wonder how useful it is to stack bricks without mortar or rebar. Most civilized building codes (or for that matter sane buyers) would not let you occupy a structure that is not reinforced. Particularly in earthquake prone regions.
Maybe that's part of the job that humans are still supposed to do. It is a step in the right direction.
Brick layers should worry.
These machines do not get tired;
they do not ask for over time;
they do not need "days-off';
they do not engage in office "politics";
They will work exactly as programmed.
Those are some of the benefits. I am sure there are more. Question is: What will present brick layers do?
I've noticed a lot of people are pretty sure the job they do is unlikely to be replaced by a machine.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
There's no point in having a robot move bricks a human can move. Human sized bricks are human sized, because humans suck for moving something bigger.
Show me a robot that just places an entire wall in one go.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Good. Automation in the home construction business will drive down prices so normal mortals can afford a house, right?
Who am I kidding, this will just allow speculators to throw up more buildings to be snapped up by Chinese investors and sit empty.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Listen, and understand! That Brickernator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't take smoke breaks, sick days, or catcall women walking down the street! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until that house is built!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The real money will be Trimbots, who's purpose is to cover up all the mistakes of all the other constructionbots.
I watched the clip about them on TV. Their claim was that the robot could 3000 a day, but a human could only do 1000. THEN they said that the robot needed 2 people to follow it and clean things up. So, 1 robot at 3000 plus two guys at 0 = 3 workers at 3000 = not a damn bit faster than current speed. Yes, they got a robot to do a new task, but it's not any faster than current.
Maybe, maybe not. It's been awhile since I've seen a post here expressing conjecture as solidified fact. No one knows for sure, time will tell. Bad poster, baaaaaad.
All those capitalists insist that capitalism solves all our problems, and yet we have simultaneously, a large number of unemployed people and a large number of unfilled jobs.
Real estate is one of the few areas where prices (especially in the last couple decades) have inflated WAY beyond what they've historically been, and I wonder if part of that is because we're still building houses with a lot of the same old inefficiencies that we've always had. Bringing some serious automation into the sector could be a good thing for prices, however, that threatens one of the few remaining industries where someone could come straight out of high school and start a decent career.
Bricks are designed to be easily handled by itty bitty human hands, and they knit together nicer to form a stronger wall than, say, good old wattle and daub. They also weather well. On the other hand, why are we still using a material thats extremely heat conductive to build walls? They are as 19th century as the internal combustion engine. Lets move up the technology and build prefab walls out of aerogel composites in a gigafactory, then cut to shape on site. Or do away with walls entirely and just have carbon fibre frames and glass. Tall buildings could then easily be constructed faster by building the upper layers first on the floor, then hiking them up into the sky and leave all the heavy industry at ground floor.
I could buy a block house on a lake in Fla. for 45 and even with this wis bank block laying you will still want a million for the very same house.
How does a exoskeleton eliminate jobs? You still need a skilled bricklayer in the thing...
Do you know the three things that determine real estate value?
Thay are:
LOCATION
LOCATION
and
LOCATION
cost of labor is not in that list
Where we've for some reason halted all construction of brick and masonry buildings.
Like 20 years ago
You're a lucky person.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
50 foot tall and takes a house out in 10 minutes. That's what I want.
if it can't do work of at least the quality of a skilled, experienced, and talented bricklayer, then it doesn't matter how fast it can do it.
Go talk to an actual bricklayer. He'll tell you that he could work a lot faster -- if no one cares what the quality of the work looks like. Almost anyone can hurry up and do something fast, but it'll likely be sloppy looking when they get done, and it might not even hold together properly.
Keep in mind that, the last time I checked, they still can't build a robot that can fold laundry correctly, and compared to a human (even a human child) it takes so much longer that it's not even worth bothering with. Everyone is believing way too much of the hype about so-called, inaccurately-termed 'AI' and 'robots taking everyones jobs'. Everyone building these things also bought into the hype, invested a shitload of money, and is now desperately trying to cash in before Guido comes to break their kneecaps for not paying back the loans.
They just ditched their shovels and I doubt you will find any construction workers that bitch about the "good ole shovel days".
This is no different if you watched the video yes the robot works faster then people but it also has a considerable setup time for the sensors and lasers that guide it. Also they need people to load it with bricks and mortar at regular intervals as well. So don't go running away from the trades because there's a new tool on the construction site.
I thought 3D printing with concrete was the future of the construction industry!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Here's the problem: the most expensive bricks are more expensive because they are non-uniform. People like variations in size, color, and texture. Robots are only good at doing everything the same, and would only be able to work with uniform bricks.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The ability of a machine with an arm to know the position of the end of that arm in space and link it to a location in a plan has many uses in construction, even as similar robotics does in manufacturing smaller things. Just by using this technology to limit an excavator from digging where it should not would allow many property owners to rent a mini-excavator and dig out a basement, make a drainage ditch with an exact slope, etc.
The brick laying attachment on the end of these machines will be out of a job about 10 minutes after on-site brick extruding comes to the market. Personally, I think the future is going to be on-site extruded insulating wall, either as ICF with poured structural concrete in the middle and channels cut for plumbing and wiring, or extruded around structural elements, plumbing and wiring that are put in place first. Probably there will be a few layers to the extrusion until a material is found that's good at both insulating and stopping intrusion by vermin.
Brick laying and exoskeletons are probably not going to be big players. The best way of saving labor costs right now seems to be fabricating as many components in factories as possible. I expect you'll see a lot more prefab housing, prefab walls, prefab kitchens, prefab bathrooms, etc., with minimal amounts of work putting everything together at the building site.
Exoskeletons create more jobs.
Jobs for robots.
Specifically, jobs for bricklaying robots.
Just as humans would hide and bury skeletons in the concrete, robots would hide and bury exoskeletons.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
So I need some brickwork done...about 1,000 bricks.
Now, I hire one guy to spend a day laying those bricks. he gets paid a day's wages. (Ok, he's probably an illegal but work with me here)
With the brick laying robot, they spend an hour laying those 1,000 bricks, presumably charge me for one hour's labor (materials separate) with maybe some robot fee or tax included, then the go on and do another 4-5 jobs that day.
Automation usually lowers cost. Lower costs means more people can afford it, which means there will be more demand.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
That brick laying robot still has to have someone feed it bricks and mortar so it's more like you can pay the same guys to run it make his job easier and more productive.
I noticed a couple things that might need further refinement, Proof of Concept, and last but not least Logistics it in the middle of a city. I'll catch the results on YouTube.
Brick is such an inferior building method that i am surprised that it is legal to use and more shocked that a buyer would spend money on a brick home or office building. Brick fails too easily. An earthquake, nearby explosion or even a serious wind storm can bring down a brick building and it also does not do well in a fire. To me bringing in high tech robotics to build with brick is ludicrous.
Bricks are only used for aesthetics. Here in Australia we're a bit stupid because we like to use brick veneers on timber-framed homes. The brick walls are tied to the timber frame so that they don't fall over - it's the timber frame that does all the load bearing.
I've seen a couple of reports that have said that the cost of building a home in Australia (cost per square metre) has remained virtually constant for decades. The increase in housing prices has been driven by land values, sizes of homes increasing and the level of fit and finish increasing. (Anyone who has built a home can tell you that the level of fit and finish is where a lot of money can be sunk).
Alternatives to bricks are becoming more common in Australia. Autoclaved aerated concrete panels are more expensive on a cost per square-metre basis, but overall about the same or cheaper than brick when factoring in labour. My brother built a home a couple of years ago and used that for all but the front of the house. Two guys clad the house in a day, whereas it would have taken a week for it to be done with brick. It's still a relatively uncommon material, but with increasing adoption the cost will come down.
Far more sophisticated than this brick laying robot...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bW1vuCgEaA
You say that like it's the most difficult problem to solve - sounds simpler than the brick laying.
At some point in the not too distant future automated trucks will all converge onto a site themselves, unpack their various robots which will then be given instructions and monitored by perhaps just a single person. Aside from the time it takes to properly cure things, time to build will surely reduce to a fraction of what it has been in the past along with the price tag.
The joke's on me here in a sense. You're trolling. You most likely aren't honestly participating in this discussion. Your response uses such faulty logic that is enough evidence of trolling on the face of it. Your sig just kind of confirms what your logic hints at. Anyway, said all that to say you are probably trolling.
But for posterity I will go ahead and analyze your response:
This logical trickery is easy to spot. I didn't say anything of the sort. I affirmed OP's point that the problem is many employers who can afford to pay a proper wage do not, and that there is no "labor shortage" just a lack of employers willing to pay a fair wage.
I didn't say some kind of thing would appear or anything of that nature.
If it paid a fair wage it would attract qualified bricklayers, many of whom are doing something in construction already. Further, it would attract current construction workers to extend their existing skills.
You're creating a false binary, really...as if there are only two options: 1. People with absolutely zero construction experience, and 2. "journeyman bricklayers, having completed training and years of apprenticeship"
That's ridiculous. There are all kinds of workers in between, many who could be trained in a matter of days.
That's one flaw in your point analyzed deeply. Your point has many flaws, but I'm only going to go in-depth a few.
This is just more evidence you are probably trolling. There's no point to saying this, especially in reply to someone who was simply affirming what someone else wrote.
So there. I guess if future generations get bored enough to read this thread, at least they'll...well I don't even know at this point.
Thank you Dave Raggett
If it the job can be done more quickly (which an exoskeleton allegedly allows), it should be obvious that they would need to employ fewer people to complete a given job on a given schedule.... or are you just trolling?
import Hellgians, if you can un-root them from their brick pile. I think we has too many here
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?