Illegal alien robots? Sweet!

cretinbob: Glad to see business hiring Americans again. Wait, what?

To be fair they tried to hire unemployed Americans but almost none were willing to take the jobs, so robots it is.

\I for one welcome our new robot overlords minions.

Right, but where were these robots manufactured?

What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Read that three times as Teen nurseries and was quite confused.

//way to early to be up.

So if we don't make it easy to hire people at slave wages and through an underground economy, industry will innovate and come up with another solution? Crazy! This should be outlawed. It was much better when I could have a dozen slaves carry me around on an elevated platform and write it off as a business expense.

EngineerAU: So if we don't make it easy to hire people at slave wages and through an underground economy, industry will innovate and come up with another solution? Crazy! This should be outlawed. It was much better when I could have a dozen slaves carry me around on an elevated platform and write it off as a business expense.

If it is any consolation to you the robots were likely assembled from components manufactured in Asia by peons earning what would be considered slave wages in the US. So the exploitation is not completely out of the picture. It has just shifted around a bit geographically.

are unimpressed

What a Mexican Robot might look like

why doesn't this have 'hero' tag?

WOOHOOO!!

yes, I really am this excited. It signals the first step in my semi autonomous robot farm. Now I just need to be able to have them find and retrieve eggs from the free range chickens and find and retrieve cow patties from the mini-cows for delivery to the methane powered electricity generation facility.

ItsMyNameYouCantHaveIt: What a Mexican Robot might look like

[i439.photobucket.com image 300x321]

That took WAAAY too long...

Too_many_Brians: WOOHOOO!!

yes, I really am this excited. It signals the first step in my semi autonomous robot farm. Now I just need to be able to have them find and retrieve eggs from the free range chickens and find and retrieve cow patties from the mini-cows for delivery to the methane powered electricity generation facility.

For some reason that got me thinking.
Egg retrieval could be performed with a modified roomba. I would transplant the Roombas "brain" in to a tall chassis with pnuematic wheels. The vacume cleaner bit could be replaced with some sort of spinning brush mechinism to toss the eggs it finds into a hopper.
have the freedom of the range confined to say, a 30 foot square and let the roomba things preprogramed routine do the rest.

hogans: What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

How about that blue one?

Robots están tomando nuestros trabajos!

Cerebral Knievel: Too_many_Brians: WOOHOOO!!

yes, I really am this excited. It signals the first step in my semi autonomous robot farm. Now I just need to be able to have them find and retrieve eggs from the free range chickens and find and retrieve cow patties from the mini-cows for delivery to the methane powered electricity generation facility.

For some reason that got me thinking.
Egg retrieval could be performed with a modified roomba. I would transplant the Roombas "brain" in to a tall chassis with pnuematic wheels. The vacume cleaner bit could be replaced with some sort of spinning brush mechinism to toss the eggs it finds into a hopper.
have the freedom of the range confined to say, a 30 foot square and let the roomba things preprogramed routine do the rest.

And it could double purpose as a feed spreader out the back. Wouldn't it suck up leaves, manure, and what not from the lawn/animal area?

edmo: So they can't offer wages high enough to attract labor in the free market economy but they can afford to buy oodles of these pricey little guys? Hmmmm.

Ah, I see you have the Agribot-3000. This is my favorite. You see we lease it back from the company we sold it to and that way it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.

Too_many_Brians: Cerebral Knievel: Too_many_Brians: WOOHOOO!!

yes, I really am this excited. It signals the first step in my semi autonomous robot farm. Now I just need to be able to have them find and retrieve eggs from the free range chickens and find and retrieve cow patties from the mini-cows for delivery to the methane powered electricity generation facility.

For some reason that got me thinking.
Egg retrieval could be performed with a modified roomba. I would transplant the Roombas "brain" in to a tall chassis with pnuematic wheels. The vacume cleaner bit could be replaced with some sort of spinning brush mechinism to toss the eggs it finds into a hopper.
have the freedom of the range confined to say, a 30 foot square and let the roomba things preprogramed routine do the rest.

And it could double purpose as a feed spreader out the back. Wouldn't it suck up leaves, manure, and what not from the lawn/animal area?

Most likely, but, use a brush that is wide enough to exclude the debri, but still pick up the eggs. You'll get some extra debris obviously, but it could be mitigated this way. Also a collection tray with a meshed bottem and a slot before the tray that also excludes debri

Cerebral Knievel: Too_many_Brians: Cerebral Knievel: Too_many_Brians: WOOHOOO!!

yes, I really am this excited. It signals the first step in my semi autonomous robot farm. Now I just need to be able to have them find and retrieve eggs from the free range chickens and find and retrieve cow patties from the mini-cows for delivery to the methane powered electricity generation facility.

For some reason that got me thinking.
Egg retrieval could be performed with a modified roomba. I would transplant the Roombas "brain" in to a tall chassis with pnuematic wheels. The vacume cleaner bit could be replaced with some sort of spinning brush mechinism to toss the eggs it finds into a hopper.
have the freedom of the range confined to say, a 30 foot square and let the roomba things preprogramed routine do the rest.

And it could double purpose as a feed spreader out the back. Wouldn't it suck up leaves, manure, and what not from the lawn/animal area?

Most likely, but, use a brush that is wide enough to exclude the debri, but still pick up the eggs. You'll get some extra debris obviously, but it could be mitigated this way. Also a collection tray with a meshed bottem and a slot before the tray that also excludes debri

but how would it find them? look for a specific color? Or just thrash around constantly? and eggs roll into divits, would this be able to lift it through an uneven terrain?

Would it just be simpler to create a real life Farmville and let users pay for the experience to pick up eggs? maybe if they pick up enough eggs, then you give access to planters, or the methane scoopers.....

What exactly do these guys do? I saw them moving small plants, which I am sure is helpful, but this seems to have limited use.

Too_many_Brians:
but how would it find them? look for a specific color? Or just thrash around constantly? and eggs roll into divits, would this be able to lift it through an uneven terrain?

Would it just be simpler to create a real life Farmville and let users pay for the experience to pick up eggs? maybe if they pick up enough eggs, then you give access to planters, or the methane scoopers.....

The Nature of the Roomba Itself is to run around and the room using a preset routine, and collision avoidance, and a simple optical encoder to count "steps". All the while, it's dragging a vacuum cleaner around. It doesn't need to see anything to do it's job, you are just replacing the sucky bits with a similar picky bit. the brush could go in front of the unit, covering the wheels so that you don't run over and crush any eggs that way, directly behind the brush is a conveyer belt with paddles that pick up the eggs and transports them to the top mounted collection tray.
Now granted, the entire drive train of the original Roomba would be replaced by this set of drive wheels, a new, larger amperage H-Bridge to drive the motors, but the control signal would be the same ultimately, the motors for the brush and conveyer would also be the same control signal as the original Vacuum cleaner parts.

There is a local gentleman farmer here in town employing a movable coop for his chickens. the whole chicken coop is on wheels, and once a week, he moves the whole thing to a different
part of the pasture and sets up a perimeter fence around the coop for the chickens. The chickens have the tendency to just wander around dropping their eggs where ever.
a device such as I'm describing could work perfectly in this scenario. the device is set to patrol the area a couple of times a day, and at the end of it's routine, it backs into its charging home base and drops off it's cargo.

hmm.. .better start working on a prototype.

Vangor: What exactly do these guys do? I saw them moving small plants, which I am sure is helpful, but this seems to have limited use.

inventory pick and place, and sorting.
Say...The 1 to 3 week old plants need to be moved to the 3 to 6 week old area. And so on and so forth. Instead of having a bunch of swarthy brown folks being paid $5 an hour under the table and the shenanigans that go with that.. The little robots wander around and do the same thing all day long.

The pots can be equipped with RFID labels tied to the nurseries inventory controlled system, so the little bots always know where to go and what to do with them until the plants wind up on a pallet and then a shipping truck.

edmo: Loki-L: To be fair they tried to hire unemployed Americans but almost none were willing to take the jobs, so robots it is.

So they can't offer wages high enough to attract labor in the free market economy but they can afford to buy oodles of these pricey little guys? Hmmmm.

correct me if I'm wrong (seriously), but IIRC they were starting the wages at something in the $10-$12 dollar area. Granted, its nothing fancy, but it ain't terrible. It's just that the job itself was too hard for them.

ItsMyNameYouCantHaveIt: edmo: Loki-L: To be fair they tried to hire unemployed Americans but almost none were willing to take the jobs, so robots it is.

So they can't offer wages high enough to attract labor in the free market economy but they can afford to buy oodles of these pricey little guys? Hmmmm.

correct me if I'm wrong (seriously), but IIRC they were starting the wages at something in the $10-$12 dollar area. Granted, its nothing fancy, but it ain't terrible. It's just that the job itself was too hard for them.

And, if they are shady enough to hire illeagals, there is nothing stopping them from paying them below minumum wage, cash only under the table. To a regular employer that $10-$12 is closer to $20-$24 an hour after you factor in paying on SOC, FICA and what not.

with the little bots, the labor costs go down to a one time purchase fee and maintenance costs, which brings down the overhead tremendously.


believe it or not, this is the Jetsonsesque future we were promised as far back as the 40's and 50's

of course this all brings into question of the business and social ethics of replacing unskilled labor with automation, but there ya go. those questions are more philosophical and sociological and do not belong in a thread about neat little robots. lets save all that for the business and politics tabs.
This essay at cracked.com (new window) has more than enough of an explanation for all that then is needed for any of us to go into here.

Your jib. I like it's cut.

ItsMyNameYouCantHaveIt: Your jib. I like it's cut.

thank you kindly.. I have my opinions on the matter, and that essay more than wraps it all up when it comes to that argument in my opinion. I'm a brewer now, but in a previous life I was an Industrial automatons technician. i ruined a perfectly good hobby of home brewing beer by going professional, so now, one of many my hobbies is amateur robotics to keep my automatons stuff fresh.

I would much rather talk about making things do stuff then then the impacts. I are not smart enuff to talk it better. so I'll leave it to folks who are better at it.

Yay! One part down.

Now how hard is it to have a methane seeking robot that can pick something up and deposit it in a specific location?

Too_many_Brians: Yay! One part down.

Now how hard is it to have a methane seeking robot that can pick something up and deposit it in a specific location?

Once again, not very. There are various sensors out there for the detection of various poogasses, I remember reading a report of a hobbieist who had a particuarly gassy roommate who would spend his days watching TV and farting. So the hobbiest devised a device that would detect the poogas, turn that to a high level output bit, which would in turn initiate a IR emitter to randomly change the televisions channel.

So, it is possible to detect the gasses envolved and use it as a trigger.

Material handling is an interesting proposition though. Fresh plops would be easier to detect, while dried plops would be easier to handle and process.
I personaly wouldn't be so concerned with processing methane gas, that takes a bioreactor ands un needed complexity to the end results. Ultimatly you are looking to burn off the gas to make steam to drive a turbine coupled to a generator. Or you could get REAL fancy and use the methane as a consumable gas in a fuel cell type electro/chemical reactor. As it is, dried cow plops are readily combustable when dried out and just as efficiant with the same net greenhouse gasses. The big differnce is that you can cook over cow crap fire, but not straight methane.

Cerebral Knievel: Too_many_Brians:
I personaly wouldn't be so concerned with processing methane gas, that takes a bioreactor ands un needed complexity to the end results. Ultimatly you are looking to burn off the gas to make steam to drive a turbine coupled to a generator. Or you could get REAL fancy and use the methane as a consumable gas in a fuel cell type electro/chemical reactor. As it is, dried cow plops are readily combustable when dried out and just as efficiant with the same net greenhouse gasses. The big differnce is that you can cook over cow crap fire, but not straight methane.

Interesting. My plan is actually a mixture of household compost, plant cast offs from the aeroponic gardens, and cow manure. A source of both fuel and fertilizer. Fuel for a small turbine as a backup to the renewables using a flywheel for storage. Fertilizer for the plants growing in gardens and on the grounds.

/why yes I did dream of living in an underwater lair as a child.

Too_many_Brians: Cerebral Knievel: Too_many_Brians:
I personaly wouldn't be so concerned with processing methane gas, that takes a bioreactor ands un needed complexity to the end results. Ultimatly you are looking to burn off the gas to make steam to drive a turbine coupled to a generator. Or you could get REAL fancy and use the methane as a consumable gas in a fuel cell type electro/chemical reactor. As it is, dried cow plops are readily combustable when dried out and just as efficiant with the same net greenhouse gasses. The big differnce is that you can cook over cow crap fire, but not straight methane.

Interesting. My plan is actually a mixture of household compost, plant cast offs from the aeroponic gardens, and cow manure. A source of both fuel and fertilizer. Fuel for a small turbine as a backup to the renewables using a flywheel for storage. Fertilizer for the plants growing in gardens and on the grounds.

/why yes I did dream of living in an underwater lair as a child.

like I always say, most mad scientists are actually just very moody engineers. The Bond villains always had the coolest stuff, and the best decorating.

in any case.. I do have a hydroponic system I'm currently building. just a wee little thing with cast off PVC pipe, a pickle bucket from the restaurant and some left over aquarium water pumps. hopefully Ill have that running in a sunny window by the end of next week making salad greens for the winter.
by your description, it almost sounds like you would better off breaking down all that biological material, fermenting it, then extracting the resulting alcohol as a fuel source. I wouldn't say you be able to go off grid doing this alone, and you would probably still spend more energy than you ultimately produce but you would most assuredly put a dent in your bills by doing so.

Cerebral Knievel: in a sunny window by

Look into light metering and sunlight requirements of your plants. That sunny window is not as sunny as you might think. I started out much like you did, thinking a couple windows with southern exposure would suffice. It'll grow some low-light plants, perhaps some herbs, but for anything substantial, you're probably going to want to supplement with artificial lights. EIP if you want some suggestions, I don't want to threadjack, just offer a heads up..

rosonowski: Cerebral Knievel: in a sunny window by

Look into light metering and sunlight requirements of your plants. That sunny window is not as sunny as you might think. I started out much like you did, thinking a couple windows with southern exposure would suffice. It'll grow some low-light plants, perhaps some herbs, but for anything substantial, you're probably going to want to supplement with artificial lights. EIP if you want some suggestions, I don't want to threadjack, just offer a heads up..

thank you! but I wasn't relying on the window light alone. I've just been rambling all over this thread already so Ive been trying to keep it short. I'm looking at a mixture of natural sun and incandescent grow lights. its going to be a small experimental set up, so nothing high powered.. yet...

Cerebral Knievel: rosonowski: Cerebral Knievel: in a sunny window by

Look into light metering and sunlight requirements of your plants. That sunny window is not as sunny as you might think. I started out much like you did, thinking a couple windows with southern exposure would suffice. It'll grow some low-light plants, perhaps some herbs, but for anything substantial, you're probably going to want to supplement with artificial lights. EIP if you want some suggestions, I don't want to threadjack, just offer a heads up..

thank you! but I wasn't relying on the window light alone. I've just been rambling all over this thread already so Ive been trying to keep it short. I'm looking at a mixture of natural sun and incandescent grow lights. its going to be a small experimental set up, so nothing high powered.. yet...

I was looking into lighting for plants and found that windows are actually coated to filter certain wavelengths and so plants might not receive everything they need. It made me look into solar tubes (or DIY equivalent) as a passive light source that would allow much more directional focus for light.

Link (new window)

Also aeroponics looks more efficient on both a water usage and space issue. I could be wrong though, since I don't have any practical info. Disney uses it feed their masses though...

They took our jobs?

Too_many_Brians: Cerebral Knievel: rosonowski: Cerebral Knievel: in a sunny window by

Look into light metering and sunlight requirements of your plants. That sunny window is not as sunny as you might think. I started out much like you did, thinking a couple windows with southern exposure would suffice. It'll grow some low-light plants, perhaps some herbs, but for anything substantial, you're probably going to want to supplement with artificial lights. EIP if you want some suggestions, I don't want to threadjack, just offer a heads up..

thank you! but I wasn't relying on the window light alone. I've just been rambling all over this thread already so Ive been trying to keep it short. I'm looking at a mixture of natural sun and incandescent grow lights. its going to be a small experimental set up, so nothing high powered.. yet...

I was looking into lighting for plants and found that windows are actually coated to filter certain wavelengths and so plants might not receive everything they need. It made me look into solar tubes (or DIY equivalent) as a passive light source that would allow much more directional focus for light.

Link (new window)

Also aeroponics looks more efficient on both a water usage and space issue. I could be wrong though, since I don't have any practical info. Disney uses it feed their masses though...

Hey hey! my neighbor just installed one of those! looks pretty cool, and not... terribly expensive that is an idea. i'm setting up in a dormer window on the upper floor of the house so that really could work.
Ive seen Aeroponic set ups that were little more than a rubber maid container with holes cut in the top for the baskets, and a aquarium air pump and bubble wand.