Community Combined Robot Build
Hey everyone - there's been chatter about potentially working together to build a robot as a combined community effort. I don't believe anything like that has ever been attempted (or accomplished) before, anywhere. It would sure make waves in the industry! The idea was inspired by conversation about "struggling" or "failed" robot companies. Everyone has opinion feedback on what they believe the cause of the industry stagnancy is - and there's no right or wrong opinion because at this stage of the industry, different people/companies/products are affected by different industry challenges.
And, as a optimist, I suggested "Hey, there's no shortage of industry complaints and challenges, so why don't we talk about how to turn it around and build a robot that proves us right". If someone else can do it, we can do - so I'd rather it be us
So, like, wow... I get pretty stoked thinking about this whole thing. If we come up with an agreement on what a robot should do, we can split up the responsibilities and combine them into one project. It'll also help the software grow because I imagine there would be some interesting requirements.
On that note, I've moved all of the chatter on this topic here. What do you think? Let's work together and make something awesome!
@perry_s agree with the pic. If only there was a moderator who could change it on this thread
Theft Theft is always going to be a problem and we can throw cameras and alarms at the problem (remember the security robot made from a jazzy chair https://synthiam.com/Community/Robots/Security-Cam-Robot-This-Droid-Is-Watching-For-You-Jazzy-Power-193 ) I guess we could disguise the GPS and with a separate data feed like Lora so at least we can find it.
If you go to a lot of cities there are hundreds of electric scooters just laying around and no one steals them. Norway, Sweden etc even Toronto has a pilot program. Even high crime areas like Sao Palo, Brazil they are everywhere.
If we started off in low crime wealthy neighbourhoods (the people who can afford uber eats) I believe the problem of vandalism or theft would be lower. Once they are pervasive people would get used to seeing them and begin to ignore them I believe.
Autonomous If we started with a location where testing autonomous vehicles is legal we could start to do test runs on known straights or low risk sections of the journey. One person could control 2 or 3 at once this way.
Other Revenue Once we have these on the road we can use them for a whole lot of other purposes as well. Courier deliveries, cover them with Advertising, you could probably even charge people to get to drive one (cutting labour costs).
Interesting - although someone stealing a robot might be more inclined to do so... over a scooter
. Did you hear about that thousand scooters they found in the bow river in calgary? ha hilarious. People were just chucking them off the bridge when they were done with them.
A faraday cage (i.e. tin foil coated emergency blanket) work well for blocking wifi/gps/all radio signal for kidnapping robots. Okay, you caught me that I think about that stuff. Mostly when I see news about delivery drones or robots.. I think to myself, what a wonderful world - how could i steal that robot?
Battery power in cold weather is gonna be a biggy - so maybe Canada isn't the best place for pilot HA
Lastly, if the robot was designed to have short range, it really could operate downtown in trendy spots to serve other downtown residents (or some sort of down town area). Meaning, it would be a real neat marketing ploy for restaurants. Think about it... chill'n with your friends and ordering some pizza and it gets delivered by a robot?! Heck yes! Best party ever!
But... even with a robot delivering the food, you're in competition with monster well-known companies like skip the dishes, uber eats and door dash (apparently they're still a thing). Guess you'd have to work with one of those companies to get on the radar of people?
Okay so logistics aside - maybe that's something solved with pilots and such. Is this the best robot? Better than an affordable robot that cleans floors in malls/supermarkets/etc? Or a door greeter telepresence at offices that asks covid questions and brings people to their meeting autonomously?
Note to self do not pilot in Calgary. Scooters in the river? You guys are brutal. I have been trying to steel your robots remotely for weeks now but I just can’t seem to navigate my way out of the box.
The problem with robots in malls etc is they don’t want autonomous robots with consumers around. The greeter robot sounds great but when a customer is hit by a robot and sues the corporation they could be liable for millions. This is why we don’t see them running up and down the isles in Loblaw and Walmart even though they have been testing them for years.
Cold weather can be solved with heater batteries, Tesla is a good example. They drive them in Canada in the winter (why on earth you would drive a low profile Tesla in snow though is mind boggling)
yeah you would partner with Uber eats etc they would rather pay $5 for delivery than $10.