Great gadgets, solve big problems with 3D printing

Transferring human abilities and consciousness to machines is the most difficult part of robotics engineering. For example, grasping items gently and firmly is just a human subconscious movement, but it is not easy to let the robot do it.

Therefore, many scientists spend a lot of time and effort developing various technologies to make robots grasp objects like humans. But now there are two scientists who have taken a different approach and considered this issue from another angle: the current world products are made according to human needs, so why not make a slight modification on the items to make them more adaptable to the robot's action mode, to the robot More "friendly"?

The two scientists are Zhe Xu and Maya Cakmak from the Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Washington. They presented their findings at the recent 2014 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Systems (IROS). Based on this theory, they also developed a simple 3D printing tool Griple, which can be mounted on ordinary items to make the robot more convenient to grasp and use. More importantly, it is also cheap, durable, and easy to manufacture and use.

The Griple can be called an adapter that can be easily mounted on everyday items like brooms and brushes so that the robot can grip and use them securely.

As you can see in the video at the bottom of this article, cleaning robots suddenly become a viable reality, and all you have to do is print a small tool in 3D at a very low cost, then use Sugru self-curing silicone. Fix it on the target item. In this way, it is easy to solve the three major problems that have made robot engineers crazy: grasping, using and placing.

The Griple research team did a series of tests to get a PR2 robot to grab and use items like sponges, rags and brushes, and then put them back in place.

Before using Griple, the robot's success rate was 86% (already quite good data); but with the addition of Grple to the target item, the success rate increased dramatically to 99%.

In addition, it is understood that the two scientists also suggested that Griple can also help robots identify items by simply adding an electronic tag, such as a QR code, to the robot to easily recognize that it is a toilet brush instead of toothbrush.

Although technically, Griple is simply not worth mentioning. But at a higher level, it is significant. It allows people to see that simply changing ideas and making simple and ingenious innovations will allow robots to integrate into human life more quickly. 3D printing technology is a powerful tool for achieving this innovation.

(Editor)