D
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Now add a face shield, and have boxing matches with them.
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Robotic Suit Gives Shipyard Workers Super Strength
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Parja
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Hopefully without the whole bolting stuff to your skeleton part.
dgingeri
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oh, my muscles ached a bit, yes. I don't normally do anywhere close to that much physical labor as a test lab systems admin. (most days, I'm sitting in my chair all day.) However, it is not that out of the ordinary, either.
Straining activities like that are helpful. They get the blood moving, the muscles working, and make us stronger. People who avoid activities like that are too lazy, and they stay weak because of that avoidance. Weak people don't stay away from labor because they're weak, they stay weak because they avoid the labor. They'll probably die earlier from their lack of physical fitness, too.
People today don't push themselves. "It's too hard!" or some such. I've known too many of them. "Fatigue reducing" is something that should not even be in our vocabulary. It is only through pushing ourselves and our limits that we gain strength and stay healthy.
Now, I'm not a major pusher of physical fitness. I'm 5'8" and 240lbs with a 40" waist. I'm obviously not Mr. Muscle. However, I am not one to sit around, either. Much of my 240lbs is pretty good muscle. (I just have too much of a liking for sweets.) I had a coworker complaining that he was reaching 220lbs, at my same height, yet he had a 48" waist. He did almost no physical activity. (Software developer) He never pushed himself. He never reached. He'd avoid discomfort. So, he never succeeded, in fitness nor in his career.
I don't take the easy path. I park in the back of the parking lot (mostly to avoid having to wait for the lazy idiots who sit and wait for minutes for a close in parking place.) I do a lot of things myself, rather than have things brought to me. It is through these things that I am as strong as I am.
It's an every day, all the time, kind of thing. It's a basic thought process, a way of thinking. Don't be afraid of a little fatigue or discomfort, or maybe even a short time of poverty. Good times, easy times, make us weak and unhealthy. Hard times, uncomfortable times, make us strong and healthy. If you get one of those comfortable times, it's past time to get up and push yourself and move forward. Keep that in your head.
The biggest problem in western culture these days is that people are too comfortable. We've grown weak and lazy as a culture, and so many want handouts without working. Our whole society is collapsing under the weight of it.
Cmdrmonkey
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Given my experiences with battery powered tools, I'm imagining this thing running out of juice and crapping out right while the user is lifting something massive.
D
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Nah, it will work great for the first few uses, and then lose 20% of its maximum capacity every use after that. (more in line with the power tools you're talking about)
Wierdo
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I certainly see where you're coming from of course, but in terms of increasing productivity for a company I can imagine where this is going. The company doesn't care about your fitness per se - except that it lets you do the labor - but rather how much gets done on their dime, so if they can hire people to do the job for longer hours, for example, or if they can expand their labor market options with this product, then it might be positive for their bottom line.
It's not about "can he do this now or not" but rather "if he could do more for longer" then what does that translate into profits.
That's one potential angle, plus as a starting point this is an interesting concept. Anything between what we have no and full automation of manual labor is an interesting stepping stone or window into future industrial trends imho.
Don't want to dwell on details, but were they at the ends of your arms, like this metal plate this guy is carrying or on your shoulders?
Well you're carrying them with your arms out in front of you, so yeah, 100lbs in front of you all day long. It's no different than farm hands tossing 50lb haybails up over a 10 foot wagon wall all day in a hay field. I used to do that too.
I'm not denying there is a potential benefit for technologies like this, all I'm doing is seriously doubting their current cost vs capability. I'm sure that suit cost a bit north of $100 to make, and would pose a significant investment for a company that only uses unskilled laborers for those types of jobs in the first place. And that's not even considering the extreme limitations at this time.
That's why things like dollies, pallet jacks and forklifts exist - they're cheap supplements to simple labor.
dgingeri
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Oh, no, that's not what I mean. It's not about what the company wants. It's a personal thing.
A lot of people complain about things that would not be issues if they'd just push themselves out of their comfort zone just a little bit. I have found that achy muscles are achy because they aren't getting used. It could be as simple as getting a pair of 3lb ankle weights to wear when around the house, or intentionally parking further from the entrance and walking farther to get into a store, or simply parking in a parking place when they stop to get their mail instead of parking right in front of the mailboxes. (That last one is a BIG problem at my apartment complex, SO many lazy jerks that just block traffic to the rest of the complex because they don't want to walk an extra 10-12 steps to get their mail.) I'm sick of hearing complaints about these things while there is a simple solution right in front of them that they ignore because it is outside their comfort zone.
jojo69
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why to I keep reading the thread title as "robotic slut" ?
TwistedAegis
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So you did that, once, not for a full 8 hour day. Now imagine doing that, day after day, year after year.
Yes it needs to spec up. But think of the potential savings to the company in healthcare/retirement benefits down the road by significantly reducing injuries and the general wear and tear on the body over time.
You're not allowed to use common sense here... you're supposed to take a days/seasons/years work and extrapolate it to 40 years and pretend you're a machismo tech forum dweller.
I'll give this advice to the next disabled laborer I meet. "You fucked up your back/shoulder because even after 20 years of lifting you're still just a pansy."
sfsuphysics
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Hydraulically powered robots... that are more apt to do this. Or people, one item at a time so don't don't have to lift a "massive" amount of 30kg items
dgingeri
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I'm not talking about the 5% of the US or European populations who actually do physical labor. I'm talking about the 60%+ of those populations who sit around in an office and avoid doing any physical labor, then whine about aches and pains in their joints that never get used.
However, it could be interpreted for those 5% of laborers in that if they are doing the same thing for 40 years and never work their brains to develop skills to make more money, then whine about never making more money, then that is their fault. It doesn't have to be about physical labor.
It's all a matter of perspective.
Now, if you consider a person who has diminished mental and/or physical capacity, yet works their hardest to get and keep a job that they can do. They have a right to keep their head up proudly. A person's capacity doesn't matter, so long as they try to do and be more.
TwistedAegis
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Look up how much a longshoreman makes.
The fact that dgingeri thinks only 5% of the workforce is in a manual/physical labor position alone tells me that hedoesn't really know what they're talking about. The rest of what he says pretty much confirms it. But, you know, dgingeri lifted a couple of servers and racked them, so he knows all about manual labor. Even though his total manual labor for that day was probably a couple of hours or so, tops.
john doe 182
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I super excited for exoskeleton tech progressing. Having a mom with MS I see the obvious need for this type of tech. That said, this suit serves no advantage over current simple machines of forklifts, pallet jacks, and dolly's/two-wheelers. I work for a beer distributor and spent 3 years loading beer trucks. Lifting 1500 cases of beer by hand in one night was not unusual. A snap shot of my job
That is 94 half barrels at about 165lbs each and 30 sixth barrels at about 60lbs each. 10 of those 1/2's had to be stacked in the front of the truck and I had to carry and stack each 1/6. I'm 5' 7.5" and 165lbs and this wasn't that hard for me.
If I had to move single pieces of 66lbs around all day long a dolly would make easy work of getting anywhere a forklift couldn't. I could easily run 50+ hours a week doing easy work like that and still have plenty of energy to live a life.
That is 94 half barrels at about 165lbs each and 30 sixth barrels at about 60lbs each. 10 of those 1/2's had to be stacked in the front of the truck and I had to carry and stack each 1/6. I'm 5' 7.5" and 165lbs and this wasn't that hard for me.
If I had to move single pieces of 66lbs around all day long a dolly would make easy work of getting anywhere a forklift couldn't. I could easily run 50+ hours a week doing easy work like that and still have plenty of energy to live a life.
Used to shovel around 301 pound 74 cradles all day cause it was faster for two men to do it than use a forklift. It's actually not superhuman, and we weren't Mr Universes. 66 pounds is a moderate load that any human should be capable of carrying, or at the very least easily capable of putting onto push cart for transportation.
jojo69
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5% manual labor...lol
somebody is wayyyyyyy out of touch
somebody is wayyyyyyy out of touch
Grahamkracka
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Having spent years of my life in some particularly shitty deserts wearing at least a MINIMUM 70 pounds of gear every day, something to take the load off my legs and back during day to day operations would have been nice. Sure, I can walk around all day with 70 extra pounds....but that doesn't mean I like to. And lets not mention how fast your body becomes exhausted from that extra weight when you are forced into a more stressful situation (like combat) . These things can be useful in their current form for sure, but they obviously have far greater potential as technology advances.
Grahamkracka
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Oh, and I'm really tired of having the knees of a 70 year old man at the age of 29. Mmmmm, I love the feeling of arthritic knees in the morning.
LeninGHOLA
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Not quite dry alfalfa, man. Never again.
dgingeri
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I've had arthritis in my knees for decades, since about age 24. I've had trouble with my knees since I was 12 due to Osgood-Schlatter. (For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a stress fracture of the top of the tibia where the tendons from the quadriceps attach, usually caused by jumping or rapid direction changes while running in kids ages 10-14 while their legs are still growing. In my case, it was caused by rapid direction change drills while playing basketball. Look it up, it's a very interesting read. Sufferers also frequently get arthritis in their 20s.) Did you know exercise and movement help arthritis quite a bit? I'm now 42, and I've been exercising them with recommended exercises for the last five. My arthritis has never felt better than it does now.
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Arthritis_and_exercise
dgingeri
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Most people don't even know what manual labor is these days. They think stocking shelves or working a warehouse is manual labor. That's mostly assisted by machines. Trying laying sod, or being a farm hand. Most of what used to be manual labor is far more assisted by machines these days. Building a car or other vehicle isn't manual labor, it's machine operation. Heck, most of farming these days is just operating machinery. If you think operating machinery is manual labor, you're out of touch on what is manual labor.
Google's results for "define manual" search:
man·u·al
ˈmanyə(wə
l/Submitadjective
1.
of or done with the hands.
"manual dexterity"
synonyms: done with one's hands, by hand, laboring
Manual labor: laying sod, picking fruit or vegetables, collecting bales of hay (the harvesting and baling of hay is done by machines,) roofing, framing houses, etc.
Jobs that used to be manual labor but are now machine operation: vehicle (car, trains, planes, boats, ships) assembly, steel working, many parts of farming, loading trucks, and more.
What used to be done by hand (loading boxes onto trucks by hand, planting, harvesting, connecting and building vehicle parts) are now done by machines (forklift, pallet jack, tractors, robots.) They aren't manual labor anymore.
These jobs are barely over 5% of the workforce in the US these days, and usually minimum wage or even lower paid illegal immigrant jobs. (If they'd come into the US legally, they'd be under the minimum wage laws. Keep that in mind next time you have a California avocado, which are almost exclusively picked by illegal immigrant labor at about $1/hour.) Europe has a bit higher percentage. Old shops and old ways of doing things.
Much of the "blue collar" work these days is machine operation. I don't discount what they do, and a significant portion is manual labor, but it's not even close to a majority of what they do. Time spent on manual labor on hourly wage jobs is barely 20% on average across those jobs. Car manufacturing in particular is barely 5% manual labor. Farming, in total, is around 25% manual labor. (Farm hands are typically hired to do much of the manual labor on farms. The farmers themselves reserve operating the tractors or milking machines for themselves. I learned this from my uncle, who is a farmer in Indiana, almost 30 years ago.) It may be fairly hard work, but in my teens, I worked on a roofing team one summer and laying sod a second summer. I know full manual labor, and I know how hard it is. The sunburn, the aching muscles, the constant repetitive work for a full 8-10 hours. Most people these days don't have a clue. Most people haven't done a full manual labor job.
jojo69
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mmmmmmmkay