Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot

BHSPitMonkey

I love the ingenuity, though it's all fun and games until someone or something manages to yank down on one of the cables...

yathern

Very clever - and I love "tension is all you need"

bigwheels

It's an interesting concept, but I think I'll hold out for the full-body humanoid version. There is an undeniable allure to the idea of a bipedal chassis realizing I'm an inefficient drain on corporate resources, then stabbing me to death while I sleep due to a minor Terms of Service violation.

monkeydust

Super smart but it's one of those ideas that hopefully gives someone else in this space another idea that leads to something that could mass scale and I would buy. Love the ingenuity though.

iJohnDoe

It's an interesting concept. If you scroll through the page you'll see it's actually pretty strong. The blanket pick up video should actually be the first video. My fear is that a company that has the money to build and manufacture this will rip off the idea and use their resources to polish the concept. With a lot polish, this type of thing can be useful in certain environments.

stainablesteel

get funding for this, it's worth a shot

conductr

My thoughts while watching the video Robot picks up clothes -> this is stupid Robot picks up kids toys -> this is brilliant In reality though, I think the cables will never work in a household situation. It's a interesting concept and I'm sure it was fun to build :) Makes me wonder what commercial application this would work for, I'm sure there's something out there that would benefit from this over waiting on humanoid tech

HeyLaughingBoy

I was actually just thinking about something like this this morning. Mainly because I was idly wondering if the kinematics would work with just 3 supporting cables. Intuitively, it seems like it should, but I haven't bothered to research it yet. Anyone?

yeehawjared

LOL @ tension is all you need

jayd16

Can it make a bed? Actually, can it lift a comforter? Can it fold towels? I think the form factor is actually fine but the specs probably need a boost.

smnplk

Looks good, but I am waiting for Droneman

monkmartinez

Awesome!!! I love projects like this. Reminded me of the Hangprinter https://github.com/tobbelobb/hangprinter which has been around for around for long time... always wanted to build one. ETA: https://hangprinter.org/

bigcat12345678

Come on this is not up to the standard. Consumer product must be highly polished, it can be fully unfuncyional, but it needs to look good. This one is close to my 8 years old son's tape+random lego pieces...

darkmighty

I didn't understand if exactly this feature is available, but I think it would be a good idea to let the strings actually come off each motor completely when yanked hard. Interesting idea :)

Hasz

To those asking about more demanding tasks, I totally think this thing could scale up, reminds me of Maslow CNC (and predecessors): https://www.maslowcnc.com/ basically a cable driven 4x8 sheet router.

MisterTea

I've been wanting to build a cable robot for Halloween which flys a ghost around the front yard with a vision system that detects people passing by and the ghost floats towards them and follows them.

swid

They designed the cables to go down into the room, instead of from the ceiling - seems like that is a deal breaker for most environments actually, because you need the whole room to have open space just to drop it to the floor all over. They say they use 4 actuators, but if they only used 3, this problem would be solved. Instead of independently controlling all four lines, you can join the lines leaving each corner unit and then just move the line left or right instead of reeling two different lines in and out. You still use the corner eye loops, and you use two cables that are X+Y in length. This allows you to pick a point on the ceiling. Then a third actuator and line in the gripper itself could lower itself to the floor.

nlitsme

Seems to work for people who basically have very empty rooms, and very orderly piles of things.

delichon

They compare it to a robotic arm, but they are a natural combination. Two arms, even, floating above it all, could scratch the dog, make breakfast, and maybe someday, fold a fitted sheet.

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe

Awesome! Though I'm thinking that you can do MUCH MUCH more things with 2 grippers than with one. Has all been tried in terms of weight management to instead of having a motor in the air with a gripper, putting two motors on each end corner of the ceiling that can pull a line tethered to a (in the air) pulley system that grasps? You could then have say 4 lines to pull (1 left grip, 1 right grip, 1 to adjust both gripper's distance, 1 to rotate the in the air platform).