Back in the days, people thought how their future would be. For example, they imagined that there would be phone without wire, television with 3 dimensions, car with solar energy, etc. Most of all, people thought that robots will do everything what people usually do. Recently, robots are getting smarter. Therefore, people are having many challenges to grow its improvements. One of them is bricklaying robot that can raise the brick shell of a house in two days.
Brick-laying robots are not news, but this invention, Fastbrick Robotics, is on a fully automated brick-laying robot. Mark Pivac, the engineer in Australia, invented Fastbrick Robotics. According his word, he said that this invention could work for 24 hours for 365 days, compared to human capability, which can do it four to six weeks of backbreaking work for a typical home. Furthermore, it can lay 1,000 bricks per hour and has build 150 houses for a year. With computer-controlled machinery, this technology may speed up for constructing so that it can cut the cost of it. According to Pivac, he said, “People have been laying bricks for about 6000 years and ever since the industrial revolution, they have tried to automate the bricklaying process. With CAD/CAM system’s efficiency, he believes that this robot can make a difference.
So how does it work? He uses a system, 3D computer-aided design (CAD), with laying program of a house or structure. Every location is perfectly calculated. This invention will figure out how each brick needs to be positioned and needs to be cut bricks to length.
As mentioned before, Fastbrick Robotics, also known as Hadrian, is not the first bricklaying robot, but it is a fully automated one. About detailed how it works, Hadrian does not move its vase once it starts working. It has a 28m articulated telescopic arm, which allows reaching over and around the structures building.
Now, this technology is received great significant support from government and industry parties.
In personal opinion, this invention is a great bricklaying invention, which will bring convenience and cheap cost. Since building houses is type of dangerous work, people do not have to do such things, which bring risk. Furthermore, one of the great advantages is saving time. It can build shell of a home in two days, which people can do with several weeks. Even though it has a lot of advantages, it also has negative side. First of all, it will bring unemployment, which is still a main problem in this day. Furthermore, since computer controls this invention, there is a possibility of being an error in the computer system while building the bricks. This can result in making a flawed house that can endanger people who will reside in the house.
nkg5096 made a good point on how in third world countries person’s houses may not be made very well and just the overall quality of the building/home is not good. If this technology was brought to these locations, building quality would exponentially increase. Buildings would be able to be built in a matter of days and businesses as well. A lot of people in third world countries have their businesses out of their homes because building buildings in these countries is very slow. This would allow small businesses to expand and thus expand the economy as well.
One negative of this is that the machine is limited to just bricks. Not everything is made out of bricks obviously so I wonder what this could expand into in order to lay concrete or steel.
I find this machine to be quite interesting. I read an article a couple of months back and it was very similar to this. Instead of and automatic brick laying robot, this robot would act very similarly to a 3d printer and print the foundation of a house using concrete as its medium. This process allows the structures to be strong and reliable. Also, the time it takes for the printing is a fraction of the time needed to build the structure by conventional means.
If you are familiar with how 3d printers work you would know that they form 3d objects by applying layers on top of each other until the object is completely built. As you can imagine, the final product does look like there are layers of concrete and it would require some maintenance to make aesthetically appealing.
This can be used to help build houses anywhere, it will reduce the cost of building and it will allow it to be done is a fraction of the time.
I think that having a robot which can automate the bricklaying process is a great idea. As mentioned before, it will speed up the time it takes to build a house and lower the cost to build homes which makes them more affordable to the consumer. I think that one of the biggest applications this robot could assist with is rebuilding homes and businesses after they have been destroyed after a natural disaster.
The largest advantage this robot has over humans workers is the speed in which this robot can complete the task. This would be a huge advantage in situations where many homes and businesses are destroyed in a natural disaster. This would drastically reduce the amount of time families and business owners are without their properties and help ease the pain of loosing their home or business. It would also make it cheaper for people to rebuild their homes and businesses. I think that both of those factors would make the road to recovery for a town affected by a flood or a tornado a little less painful and help those communities that are affected come back quicker and stronger.
This invention is amazing and has great capability to be used all over the world. In many countries, poorer people live in houses that are crumbling or are made from makeshift parts. If this technology is introduced the cost of living in these types of houses would decrease dramatically and these poorer people would have a much better standard of living. Overall this technology would save everyone a lot of money and a lot of effort.
I also agree with your point of how unemployment would rise where this technology is introduced. Brick laying is very long work for laborers and working on a house for weeks would make them a lot of money. With this technology their jobs would be taken and they would be unemployed.
As technology becomes more advanced and implemented into everyday communities, the skills of laborers will be far less marketable. People will lose their jobs and have to learn new skills that are applicable to a more technology based world. It will be interesting to see if more people will be able to learn these skills or if they will be unable to adapt and instead remain unemployed.