This is real world engineering. It may be trivial to write software to manipulate objects on a GUI, but this application requires indirect mapping between vibrating transducers and deterministic motion of 1 object whilst N objects remain relatively stationary. Iterate this and you have arbitrary manipulation of multiple objects in 'parallel'.
Solving the mapping problem, and building a working demo deserves some respect. So you can't think of a decent application after 30 seconds thought, so it must be useless.
The whole world of manufacturing is based on manipulation of components to produce a more complex assembly. The Universal Manipulator provides new method of achieving this and I am sure lots of applications will be found, because it is easily reprogrammable without retooling and faster than serial manipulation by a single positioning device.
As an example, PCB populating involves a whole number of pick and place motions to position all the components on the board. If all of the mechanical steps could be replaced by simply dropping all the components on the board and shaking it for a while, assembly would be faster and machines would be cheaper and simpler.
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This is real world engineering. It may be trivial to write software to manipulate objects on a GUI, but this application requires indirect mapping between vibrating transducers and deterministic motion of 1 object whilst N objects remain relatively stationary. Iterate this and you have arbitrary manipulation of multiple objects in 'parallel'.
Solving the mapping problem, and building a working demo deserves some respect. So you can't think of a decent application after 30 seconds thought, so it must be useless.
The whole world of manufacturing is based on manipulation of components to produce a more complex assembly. The Universal Manipulator provides new method of achieving this and I am sure lots of applications will be found, because it is easily reprogrammable without retooling and faster than serial manipulation by a single positioning device.
As an example, PCB populating involves a whole number of pick and place motions to position all the components on the board. If all of the mechanical steps could be replaced by simply dropping all the components on the board and shaking it for a while, assembly would be faster and machines would be cheaper and simpler.