Robots To Stay Very Far Away From: Ham De-boning Arm

Boning ham is a tedious, repetitive task. Perfect for a robot!

1 min read

This video may be NSFW if you don’t like watching raw meat get sliced up by a robot.

The reason that someone thought that giving this robot arm a razor sharp knife to stab meat with was that boning hams is a repetitive task, i.e. something that a robot would be great at. They’re probably right, and it’s an impressive technical achievement, because the robot has to be able to compensate for lots of variability in, uh, “meat form and bone size.” Using these robots, it only takes 10 people to bone 500 hams an hour instead of 20.

On the other hand, I can’t help but thing two things. First of all, this is the sort of semi-skilled labor that until very recently was not at risk for automation because of the knowledge and adaptability required. And second, we’re giving robot arms knives now. PANIC!

I’m kidding, of course.

Via [ DigInfo ]

The Conversation (0)

The Bionic-Hand Arms Race

The prosthetics industry is too focused on high-tech limbs that are complicated, costly, and often impractical

12 min read
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A photograph of a young woman with brown eyes and neck length hair dyed rose gold sits at a white table. In one hand she holds a carbon fiber robotic arm and hand. Her other arm ends near her elbow. Her short sleeve shirt has a pattern on it of illustrated hands.

The author, Britt Young, holding her Ottobock bebionic bionic arm.

Gabriela Hasbun. Makeup: Maria Nguyen for MAC cosmetics; Hair: Joan Laqui for Living Proof
DarkGray

In Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon, members of the fictitious Baltimore Gun Club, all disabled Civil War veterans, restlessly search for a new enemy to conquer. They had spent the war innovating new, deadlier weaponry. By the war’s end, with “not quite one arm between four persons, and exactly two legs between six,” these self-taught amputee-weaponsmiths decide to repurpose their skills toward a new projectile: a rocket ship.

The story of the Baltimore Gun Club propelling themselves to the moon is about the extraordinary masculine power of the veteran, who doesn’t simply “overcome” his disability; he derives power and ambition from it. Their “crutches, wooden legs, artificial arms, steel hooks, caoutchouc [rubber] jaws, silver craniums [and] platinum noses” don’t play leading roles in their personalities—they are merely tools on their bodies. These piecemeal men are unlikely crusaders of invention with an even more unlikely mission. And yet who better to design the next great leap in technology than men remade by technology themselves?

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