V0 assembly
Two arms on a lift, wheels that drive, and a small cute body for a kitchen. The price we are building toward is a thousand dollars or less. Laundry is the first job, because cloth is hard to hold. Dishes, a counter, and a stove left on come after the machine can be left with someone safely. If it can be safe around an older person, it can help almost anyone.
V0 is a push cart in San Francisco. Three USB cameras are in the logging plan, one overhead and one at each wrist. The lift, the driven wheels, and the body are not built. There is no teleoperation film yet. A still of the real cart replaces this diagram when the bench is worth photographing.
A camera sees a missed fold after the edge has already left the fingers. Machines that fold laundry ask a person to present one flat garment. Research arms can show a demo and cost more than a used car.
The question on this bench is smaller. When the jaw has a hem, a towel, a sheet, or a pair of jeans, does the force on the film tell a hold from a slip that the picture misses?
The service is local. A home, a hotel, a retirement community. It has to stay cheap, because the robot itself is meant to cost a thousand dollars or less.
Some early runs can be free. What comes back is the episode of the task: the cloth, the joints, and whether the jaw had the garment. The house is not the recording.
Recordings are made on the bench, or later with a person’s consent. A home does not become ours because a machine is in it.
The hardware’s function is not locked behind a monthly charge after it is bought.
The arms are open hardware. Parts are meant to be replaced, not sent back to a lab.
Vladimir Gutierrez. The writing is the reason for the machine, and it lives on his own site.