BAD ROBOT
July 8, 2014 9:00 PM Subscribe
I'm weirdly annoyed that the one of the robot feeding the mannequin head has obviously been sped up for hilarity purposes.
posted by elizardbits at 9:18 PM on July 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by elizardbits at 9:18 PM on July 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
The ketchupbot looks likes something the father in Gremlins would design.
posted by Hactar at 9:41 PM on July 8, 2014
posted by Hactar at 9:41 PM on July 8, 2014
Wait'll you see the new automated assembly line at GM...
BTW, but does ketchupbot do anything about the watery stuff that comes out of the bottle first? (And would you demonstrate it with Ranch Dressing?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:45 PM on July 8, 2014
BTW, but does ketchupbot do anything about the watery stuff that comes out of the bottle first? (And would you demonstrate it with Ranch Dressing?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:45 PM on July 8, 2014
The POTENTIAL poster in the background of that ketchupbot video, I can't breathe...
posted by Mizu at 9:54 PM on July 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Mizu at 9:54 PM on July 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm pissing myself laughing at these. So great
posted by Joe Chip at 10:34 PM on July 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe Chip at 10:34 PM on July 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah.. we laugh at them now....
posted by Hicksu at 10:47 PM on July 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Hicksu at 10:47 PM on July 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Warning: Somewhere a robot is taking names of those who laughed at their malfunctions.
posted by Cranberry at 12:11 AM on July 9, 2014
posted by Cranberry at 12:11 AM on July 9, 2014
Our high school electronics lab had a robotic arm. It was awesome. The arm had three sections and sat on an X-Y table with about 2 feet of play. For all of the open house tours, we would try to put together a little demonstration for the parents and new students. Our most deadly demonstration was the "HNDSHAKE" programme.
Initial testing deemed to indicate that the grip was too weak for a good handshake. A classmate came up with an epicly awful solution. We taped two 16-pin DIPs with the sharpest pins we could find to the gripper so that they interlaced like teeth. I think we all knew this was probably a bad idea, but our classmate bore the punctures well.
We eventually settled for just gluing some emery cloth on the hand and were off to the races. The arm started off in a home position curled up at the far end of the table. The first step was to unwind the arm and wheel it over to where the spectators were standing. It sat there with an open hand until someone pressed the shake hands button on the control pendant. Then it would close and the wrist would oscillate up and down a few times before opening and returning to the home position.
The problem we ran into was that we didn't add a delay between opening the gripper and returning home. I guess we thought it would just back off to the home position (curled up on the other side of the table, remember). This was the day we invented cyber-fu. While our robot was not strong, it was securely bolted to the table and used this leverage against its unsuspecting victims.
As commanded, it would open the gripper but it immediately tried to wind itself back up starting with the wrist joint. This would twist the victims hand palm up. Having control of the wrist, it would raise its arm and slide back home. This would pull the victim up onto the table. It probably wasn't strong enough to break your wrist, but remember, this is not about strength but leverage and robotic dogmatism.
Our first test case ended up crawling up onto the table to save his wrist. We decided that the program needed some tuning... but first a little more testing with the first year electronics students.
posted by flyingfox at 12:27 AM on July 9, 2014 [16 favorites]
Initial testing deemed to indicate that the grip was too weak for a good handshake. A classmate came up with an epicly awful solution. We taped two 16-pin DIPs with the sharpest pins we could find to the gripper so that they interlaced like teeth. I think we all knew this was probably a bad idea, but our classmate bore the punctures well.
We eventually settled for just gluing some emery cloth on the hand and were off to the races. The arm started off in a home position curled up at the far end of the table. The first step was to unwind the arm and wheel it over to where the spectators were standing. It sat there with an open hand until someone pressed the shake hands button on the control pendant. Then it would close and the wrist would oscillate up and down a few times before opening and returning to the home position.
The problem we ran into was that we didn't add a delay between opening the gripper and returning home. I guess we thought it would just back off to the home position (curled up on the other side of the table, remember). This was the day we invented cyber-fu. While our robot was not strong, it was securely bolted to the table and used this leverage against its unsuspecting victims.
As commanded, it would open the gripper but it immediately tried to wind itself back up starting with the wrist joint. This would twist the victims hand palm up. Having control of the wrist, it would raise its arm and slide back home. This would pull the victim up onto the table. It probably wasn't strong enough to break your wrist, but remember, this is not about strength but leverage and robotic dogmatism.
Our first test case ended up crawling up onto the table to save his wrist. We decided that the program needed some tuning... but first a little more testing with the first year electronics students.
posted by flyingfox at 12:27 AM on July 9, 2014 [16 favorites]
I worked as a software developer with remotely operated machine guns and grenade launchers for six years. Sadly/luckily I have no amazing stories to tell, mostly because that shit makes you paranoid as hell.
posted by Harald74 at 12:33 AM on July 9, 2014
posted by Harald74 at 12:33 AM on July 9, 2014
The feeding robot was clearly inspired by this scene from Modern Times.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:09 AM on July 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by kinnakeet at 5:09 AM on July 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
I made this years ago for a Fark photoshop contest. The theme was robots being bad.
posted by travis08 at 6:58 AM on July 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by travis08 at 6:58 AM on July 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
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posted by mr. manager at 9:08 PM on July 8, 2014 [18 favorites]