Tech: Teaching Robots How to Spin a Web
MIT's web-spinning robot: Be very afraid?
As Nick Barber of IDG News reports, the Mediated Matter Group at
MIT’s Media Lab is working on a robot it hopes will one day be able to
scan its surroundings and weave a structure that’s attached to elements
in the environment.
The machine isn’t able to do this just yet, but… it can be
preprogrammed to weave a pretty mean web using pegs and hooks that it’s
been told the positions of.
The researchers, who also study 3D printing, drop phrases like
“additive manufacturing processes” and say that eventually they’ll
replace the yarn shown in the video with nylon that will harden once
it’s put in place. One can imagine manufacturing or construction methods
that involve a machine that works with a given physical framework to
create custom designs.
“We’re working on the sensing so it knows where it’s going on its
own,” Research Assistant Elizabeth Tsai says in a short article by
Barber.
Via:
CNET News
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