From what TV tells me, we’ll all be living like The Jetsons shortly, right? And where would they be without their flying cars and trusty robot maid, Rosie?
Well, no flying cars yet (ahem, fellow scientists, get on that please), but a recent video from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley shows they programmed a robot to fold towels.
Check it out:
Pretty neat, eh? Of course, this video is shows at 50x speed. It actually takes about 25 minutes per towel. Heck, even I fold laundry faster than that!
The nifty part is the fact that the robot, PR2, had not previously seen those towels. It had to look at the jumbled pile, identify the objects as towels, pick them up, twist it around to find a corner to grasp, twist it around to find another corner to grasp, and the fold it on a table edge. PR2 is no Rosie yet, but I like where this science is going! Move over, Roomba!
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Hi Caitlin,
Thank you for sharing. Awww… I like it! The robot is slowly working on the towel and it does a great job, even if it takes that 25 min long now. They will improve with time.
When we all work out of the house, any help is greatly appreciated. Roomba and “Rosie”, welcome home. Will they cook too?
Cheers,
Rebecca
What a cutie!!!! lol
Becca´s last blog ..Computer "Upgrade"
Let us not forget our robot underlings potential. The power granted by this robot towel-folder is a scary one. To abuse it would mean the death of our species.
But it is cute, isn’t it.
ok, I don’t mind folding towels so much as anything else. I mean, the towels are the EASY part, right? But this is a major step…
Melissa Cordstone´s last blog ..Macrame Knot of the Week: Switch Knot
while i think that the whole ‘towel folding’ is taking this ‘convenience’ of ours to a whole new level the simple fact that science is advancing is a wonderful thought. Think of some of the things that this robot could be capable of: (bomb diffusing, fire fighting, mining, etc)…any of those types of jobs that put human life in peril…
The trouble with getting a robot to fold towels is *sigh* that’s just more clutter. A large part of getting rid of clutter is being active generally, and then focusing that activity around the house. (Which reminds me, this desk is a mess for no reason right now.)
I see this entry was from a while ago. Are you still keeping up the blog? It looks excellent in terms of template, love the about page, looks like you’ve networked quite a bit…
ashok´s last blog ..“Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins
Fold a bra robot!
Watching the video is kinda interesting but seriously now? A robot to fold laundry? Still, it’s amazing how the robot learned what to do and how to do it. What would they think of next.
That pretty cool, a bit lazy but pretty cool =)