Robot Stacks 1,000 Bricks An Hour

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I don't know why you need a robot that can build a house in two days. The robots of the future will just murder us and take our homes so there's no real need for a murderbot that can stack bricks and build houses.

A new automated, truck-mounted robot can build a house in two days, moving four times faster than human construction workers. Hadrian X by the Australian company Fastbrick Robotics Limited can reportedly lay as many as 1,000 bricks per hour and, because robots don’t need lunch breaks, Hadrian X can work around the clock. The company’s impressive prototype demonstrated its abilities on a small-scale build inside a warehouse, which you can see in a time-lapse video after the jump.
 
Why do we need time lapse video of something that could lay 1000 bricks an hour. a 5min video would lay like 18 bricks. Me thinks this thing is really only as fast as a 3d printer at this point.
 
1) Unless that is some super duper high tech stuff, I doubt that little squirt of construction adhesive(?) they put on the brick really does anything for the brick.

2) Great finding ways to take jobs away from the skilled yet uneducated :D
 
[facepalm]
Masonry work is part science, part art. It takes some real world skill to achieve good results in bad condition. How many houses are build in a warehouse where everything is dead level and straight and conditions are perfect?
When you are building a house; you are laying block on a poured concrete footer that is poured in a trench; everything else is pure mud.
 
That robot sucks. There's like a 0.5 inch gap between each brick. You'd have more shelter from a tent.

It's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast.
 
I'd assume they didn't use mortar in the demo because they didn't want a permanent structure in the warehouse.
And really, that's some precision work for being at the end of a long crane.
 
It's just a matter of time before that robot goes from stacking bricks to stacking human corpses. It's all part of the plan -- the robot plan to take over the world.
 
gxp500 said:
You forgot the mortar you dumb robot, you're fired!
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if you read the article/view the video you'll see that the robot does spray adhesive on the bricks, which according to the article "removes the need for mortar".

I'm not quite sure if that's really correct though. I would not like to be in a house that's built without using mortar considering there'll be a lot of air flow.

There's also the issue of the type of bricks. I'm no construction worker, but i didn't think all bricks were the same size.
 
"build a house in two days" is so misleading as to be an ouright lie. Digging and pouring the foundation are conveniently left out. So are siding, interior finish (drywall?), electrical, plumbinb, HVAC, trusses, roofing, flooring, painting.....

"Rough in the walls in two days" is more accurate. In planned communities where a single builder is doing all the homes, you'll see all the pre-fab walls go up in about 2 days.

DeeFrag said:
That robot sucks. There's like a 0.5 inch gap between each brick.
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That's space for mortar.
DocSavage said:
And really, that's some precision work for being at the end of a long crane.
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THAT's where the technology is impressive. Makes me wonder if there's some optical sensors helping align it accurately at that distance.
 
The way it lines it up at such a quick pace is kind of impressive but if you add mortar to the mix I bet it drops the speed tremendously. With mortar it would need a device to disperse the mortar and then another to spread it and another to clean the lines. I see a robot making a huge mess with all that and having the mortar make a big mess and gum up things. It is a good start but not ready. I will be impressed when it can do the mortar and everything so it is a nice seamless wall with no gaps.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
[facepalm]
Masonry work is part science, part art. It takes some real world skill to achieve good results in bad condition. How many houses are build in a warehouse where everything is dead level and straight and conditions are perfect?
When you are building a house; you are laying block on a poured concrete footer that is poured in a trench; everything else is pure mud.
Click to expand...

And how does the sheetmetal guy or the plumber coordinate with a robot for leaving holes so they can run their pipe and ductwork? That's something that just happens on the fly when it's all manual, but now these things would have to be done by blueprint cause if the brick layers cover up the other guys, well I have seen how that goes and it's usually a great big hole for an itty bitty pipe.

My old man talked with the bricklayer about leaving out a couple of bricks at spot in one room, we came back later and they didn't leave any hole. So my Dad made one, he made a hole that was two bricks wider then it had to be in every direction, and made sure when he took those bricks out he used a sledge and hit every brick dead center ruining every one. After that the brick layer showed a little more consideration when it came to working with the other professions on the work site.
 
nightanole said:
Why do we need time lapse video of something that could lay 1000 bricks an hour. a 5min video would lay like 18 bricks. Me thinks this thing is really only as fast as a 3d printer at this point.
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(1,000 bricks / 60 minutes) x 5 minutes = 18 bricks. Your math seems sound. :facepalm:

It would be closer to ~83 bricks over the course of 5 minutes, or just a little over 16 bricks laid in a minute.
 
sfsuphysics said:
1) Unless that is some super duper high tech stuff, I doubt that little squirt of construction adhesive(?) they put on the brick really does anything for the brick.

2) Great finding ways to take jobs away from the skilled yet uneducated :D
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. Mortar is used to fill gaps and uneven surfaces and layers. Thin layer adhesive won't do that.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
...or with cheap Mexican labor, which would be hilariously ironic. :p
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More steadily repeating history of the last "wall" built along the borders went. Hire contractors, contractors hire cheap mexican labor, not all have papers, contractor doesn't care. People hiring the contractor just pass the buck say it's the contractor's fault classical corporate/govt bureaucracy.
 
So under the perfect conditions, the robot lays the brick with a tiny bead of adhesive. What happens when the robot is exposed to extreme temperatures and has mechanical failure, how much time lost? Who is going to do the prep work? Where is the reinforcement? Who is going to set the foundation for the brick? Wheres the fucking mortar?

4 times faster? Seems that they saved that amount of time in their perfect setting while half assing the project. Anyone who buys into this bullshit needs a brain.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
...or with cheap Mexican labor, which would be hilariously ironic. :p
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Or time for all the "De terk are jerbs!" people to put up or shut up, Trump does some "New Deal" type of stimulus to ship all those people right to the border where they can get started on a wall! Unemployment falls to record low rate... assuming they go for it, which they probably wouldn't because no one is starving like they were back then.
 
c@Nc3r said:
The way it lines it up at such a quick pace is kind of impressive but if you add mortar to the mix I bet it drops the speed tremendously. With mortar it would need a device to disperse the mortar and then another to spread it and another to clean the lines. I see a robot making a huge mess with all that and having the mortar make a big mess and gum up things. It is a good start but not ready. I will be impressed when it can do the mortar and everything so it is a nice seamless wall with no gaps.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of brick robots out there that apply mortar, it would be trivial for this one to do it as well. The main thing with this robot vs the others is that it is both telescoped and dynamic. The existing robots can basically do straight walls, where as this one can do an entire building from one location.

One thing left out is that this is a whole building system from looking at some other videos of it. Using a solidworks add-on, you can quickly build up a 3D model for the whole house from a 2D floor plan and add in plumbing electrical cutouts, etc. Then you basically setup the brick machine and it just does it to mm precision. Exterior/Interior walls, routing for pipes/conduit, etc.
 
The outer brick wall (climate shell) is the most expensive part in my county (Denmark) due to wages. They lay around 600 bricks per day. But there is really no alternative to bricks due to its properties. Inner walls are made of reinforced concrete (usually highrises) or aerated concrete types. A full brick house with both outer and inner walls in brick is uncommon now due to wages. But was normal in the old days with low wages and when builders made their own home.
 
A fairly impressive machine considering how real world bricks are rather inconsistent in dimension +/_ 3/16th any given direction.
What a human brick mason knows is how to cheat the lay to make the exterior surface look perfect, the machines set most imperfections to the inside but still visible exterior flaws.
Another articulation to that boom would give it better reach capabilities however this looks awesome for mass producing low income housing which our future will greatly need.
 
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