The last few years have seen a number of protestations about the apparent automation of many jobs. Such trends certainly appear to be coming to the construction industry. I wrote recently about a new application of drone technology that will see the devices take on a supervisory role on building sites, whilst trials are underway for driverless trucks on road construction projects.
The robot bricklayer
The humble bricklayer may also be at risk of automation. A new robot, called the semi-automated mason (or SAM), offers automated bricklaying services.
The robot will perform many of the more rote tasks associated with bricklaying, such as picking up the bricks, applying the mortar and placing them in the correct location.
Its human accomplice will then perform the more nuanced parts of the job, such as laying bricks on corners or cleaning up excess mortar.
The capabilities of the device should not be under-estimated. It is attached to a scaffold and remains capable of performing seemingly rote work as the scaffold sways gently in the wind. It is, therefore, capable of making tiny adjustments to ensure the work is done according to specification.
“In construction, your design will say that a window is located exactly 30 feet from the corner of a building, and in reality when you get to the building, nothing is ever where it says it’s supposed to be,” its developers say. “Masons know how to adapt to that, so we had to design a robot that knows how to do that, too.”
Certain kinds of work
At the moment SAM’s strength is in constructing large, flat walls, such as those found on large construction projects. The makers believe however, that more detailed work is well within its capabilities.
The robot functions via a number of algorithms, a team of sensors that are used to measure angles and orientation, and a laser on either side of the workspace that moves as the work progresses.
The automation question
Suffice to say, the makers don’t see SAM’s job to remove humans from the construction site, despite it being capable of laying roughly 3 times as many bricks per day as a human bricklayer.
The purchase price for SAM is around $500,000, so it’s likely to be only useful on large projects where this kind of investment can be recouped, but it’s likely to become a trend that will only develop in the coming years.
Check out SAM in action via the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKoQMD0QZQs
A fascinating glimpse of the future. Obviously they're probably prohibitively expensive right now, but I'm sure that will go down in time.
I grew up in the 1970s. The experts were predicting everything would be done by computer… so how come we have computers and people are working long hours?
The only reason why the automation we've done so far has not resulted in people working shorter hours with the same or better quality of life is because the extra wealth derived from it has concentrated in the hands of a very few, hence the huge increase in equality worldwide and things like 8 families having as much wealth as half the world's population.
This is not a problem of technology, it's a problem of society and politics.
I agree with some points in the article. A professional stonemason or bricklayer will Adapt. I run a team of
Local Adelaide Bricklayers and so many times the plans need on the spot improvisation. Robots are coming, but for now a human brain is needed, at least for another generation.
That's totally awesome, I am an Electrical Contractor i just hope they don't make automatic electricians any time soon.
Shared! Shared! This is AWESOME stuff man! Thank you!