OMG! Robot folding laundry. And doing a great job of it !

YESSS!!! The future is finally here. From a domestic chore standpoint, laundry folding is a complex task requiring visual acuity and dexterity. That this little guy can do it and do a pretty good job of it brings us one step closer to automated households.

Notice it delineates between the towels and had towels.

Also more videos of shirt folding and socification... !!

* Hope it doesn't malfunction one day and fold the dishes, the couch and the cat ! (que Bender from Futurerama )

Robotic manipulation of non-rigid objects - where the configuration is unknown beforehand - is now possible. A robot developed at the University of California is capable of analysing towels "on the fly", rather than being given a fixed set of movements. It can analyse different shapes, colours and materials using a pair of high-resolution cameras, then fold and arrange them into neat piles.

Gasp!

I need one of those, STAT!

Better keep your pets and small children away from this one...

reply to post by Schkeptick


I know... imagine leaving the house and coming back to folded laundry and no angry exhausted wife!

reply to post by mileysubet


Poor Snickers...he was good cat, but hey at least he fits nicely in the box for burial.

reply to post by Areyoupeopleinsane
It won't be long now.
That's what Bill Gates has predicted, or so I heard, the Robots are coming.
I believe once the AI is perfected, everyone will be fitted with one 24/7, they will be Brothers's little helper Big Brother's that is.

That's weird I fold my cloths just like that too...

That was probably one hour in real time and took 5000 watts of electricity, but cool nevertheless.

reply to post by googolplex


Progression of people's mentality on robotics:

1. Okay, it can fold a towel but it's slow.

2. Okay, it can fold a towel fast, but it can't fold other cloths.

3. Okay, it can fold clothes, but it can't do dishes or and drive to the grocery store.

4. Okay, it can get groceries and dishes, but it can't think creatively.

6. Okay, it can think creatively, but it isn't conscious.

7. Okay, it's conscious....

...Well,crap

lol that's cool.

all it needs to know now is how to iron out the creases in clothes, and hang them up on a clothes hanger. Or perhaps hand them on the clothes hanger and use that steam ironing, no crease system that i keep seeing on tv.

Is it just me or does anybody else see rosie the maid from the Jetsons?

Originally posted by QuantumPhysicist
Is it just me or does anybody else see rosie the maid from the Jetsons?

edit on 12/7/11 by QuantumPhysicist because: (no reason given)

Your post is a trip! Hahaha.

This seems like a tv show or something, What a folder is right.

reply to post by Areyoupeopleinsane

Progression of people's mentality on robotics:

1. Okay, it can fold a towel but it's slow.

2. Okay, it can fold a towel fast, but it can't fold other cloths.

3. Okay, it can fold clothes, but it can't do dishes or and drive to the grocery store.

4. Okay, it can get groceries and dishes, but it can't think creatively.

6. Okay, it can think creatively, but it isn't conscious.

7. Okay, it's conscious....

...Well,crap

LOL, and by "Well, crap" you mean "We bow to you, our robot overlords."

reply to post by QuantumPhysicist


It's not just you, I was thinking about Rosie too.

Wow, it folds clothes faster than my teenager!!! Even accomodating for the timelapse!

Where do I trade her in?

reply to post by Areyoupeopleinsane


Very cool. Nice break from the political dust storm we have going on at the moment. I'd rather watch a robot fold clothes than a lot of the other videos floating around.

Oh, the NSF paid for this? Well, I can think of worse ways to spend money. Surprises me that this technology doesn't exist already...to the public.

Ok so this thing is shown folding towels, at a snails pace.
How much electricity does this thing use?
I am not very impressed, i could get someone to do all of that for 8 bucks an hour, no energy required.
Or I could just get over my lazy streak and do all of it in no time at all.
All of this tech to "make our lives better", and we have gone backwards...

While it isn't what I do best, I have been known to run hotels for a living. One of the things that takes the most "getting used to" for many is the lifestyle of small town laundry/housekeeping staff in hotels. Minimum wage pay, maybe 30 hours a week, and a requirement to be extremely flexible. Why? Because finding a replacement for ahousekeeper or laundry staff is not hard at all. If you run a decent place, you will have them beating down your door to work for you (the success of a hotel begins in the lowest paying jobs, and can be the difference in poor revenues and big revenues...protip).

I do not like the idea of hotels, especially larger ones with a larger employee base, being lured into robotic folding. While this is a great acheivment for technology, for labor it could be a serious threat. Dexterity is one of the major things that humans can market when comparing them to robots (actual reasoning is the other big human centric skill).

But I could also imagine saving about 5k a month on a 65 room hotel with one of those robots, both in employee wages as well as reduced linen waste.