Wish you had a robot to clean your kitchen?
Your dream could soon become a reality, if ReadyBot has anything to say about it. A group of scientists banned together to answer a challenge question: How many common and household commercial tasks can a two-armed, moderate-dexterity simple robot perform?
The answer: plenty. to see ReadyBot in action, click on the video, which is set to music similar to that of 50s Sears infomercials. So far, the Bot can raise and lower itself; grab, move, and tip dishes; and squeegee and wash countertops. Between this and a Roomba, just think of the possibilities! Your very own version of The Jetsons' Rosie (though it always irked me that she had female traits - ReadyBot will hopefully remain gender-neutral).
As you watch the clip, you'll notice that it moves fairly slowly, but the Bot scientists claim that this is intentional, and that it is intended to do work when people are at work or out of the house, so the lack of speed shouldn't be an issue.
Their ultimate goal? To program ReadyBot to complete approximately 80% of typical kitchen tasks (loading the dishwasher, washing dishes, etc) and then make it available for mass production. The scientists also claim that the price won't be too prohibitive, but we'll believe it when we see it.
In the meantime, one can only dream...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-01-2008 @ 12:59PM
peabody52 said...
Heh heh, that's so entertaining! The music really rocks, takes me right back to my childhood watching mindless commercials on those cherished 3 channels.
But at the rate the poor geeky thing moves, I could manually clean my own house AND the rest of the block. So boxy and awkward; it seems as if they could've made it bit sleeker and rounded. Great post--hadn't seen this before.
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3-01-2008 @ 4:35PM
kp said...
Engineers make robots, not scientists.
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