

Gape in Awe at these Super Fast Robot Hands - kkleiner
http://singularityhub.com/2009/08/06/gape-in-awe-at-these-super-fast-robot-hands/

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brg
Linked from the article is another on robot chefs:
[http://singularityhub.com/2009/08/03/the-robots-are-the-
chef...](http://singularityhub.com/2009/08/03/the-robots-are-the-chefs-in-
this-japanese-restaurant/)

One thing that strikes me about this nascent technology is how much effort is
being spent making robotic use of human hand tools.

These hand tools were developed in response to human morphology (handles on
the ladels) and physiology (avoidance of contact with high temperatures). A
robotic arm can be easily sterilized and has not need to avoid contact with
boiling water. Hence, it seems ridiculous to have a robot use them instead of
hand tools designed to better fit the robotic arm.

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scott_s
It only seems ridiculous if you assume the end goal was to have a robot be a
chef or a baseball player. It was not. Those tasks are applications designed
to answer the question: can we build robotic appendages that have the
precision and dexterity of human hands?

In research, you see if you can get the simplest thing working first. Then you
start adding complexity. In this case, the simplest thing is have a robot that
does things human hands normally do.

~~~
brg
Within the realm of the baseball playing robotics, this is true. There is a
lot of research to be done on human locomotion and automated rapid response.
Don't get me wrong, I was very impressed by the reproduction of a two finger
fastball and the response by the batter.

But as for the cooking, the robots had to be rotated to their extremes to
operate the ladle. The end result there was preparation of food, and the use
of the ladle was not the simplest thing to have the robot do. That seemed out
of place, and pointed at the ladle being the wrong tool for the job.

