
Robot gripper looks like a wilted flower, but can lift 100 times its weight - curtis
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18259883/soft-robot-origami-gripper-mit-csail-daniela-rus
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gus_massa
It looks somewhat similar to " _Balloon filled with ground coffee makes ideal
robotic gripper_ " [http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/10/researchers-
develop-...](http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/10/researchers-develop-
universal-robotic-gripper)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86G9DLJEagw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86G9DLJEagw)

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Fricken
Here's Righthand robotics solution, which combines fingers and a sucker:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5i0dsQfPCY&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5i0dsQfPCY&feature=youtu.be)

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amelius
Why does it even need fingers? It seems they don't add much value over just
the sucker.

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tyingq
Their sales pitch seems to be roughly that the value is more in the machine
learning software than the gripper itself. I assume having both means the
software can choose how much of each (fingers/suction) to use for a particular
item, after it identifies the item.

So perhaps it's supposed to work best when there's a variety of items versus a
few predictable ones.

This article has some background:
[https://xconomy.com/boston/2017/03/28/righthand-robotics-
pic...](https://xconomy.com/boston/2017/03/28/righthand-robotics-picks-
up-8m-to-automate-next-gen-warehouses/)

Also, they seem to have started with fingers only, so there's probably some
bias to keep them.

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zaroth
This is pretty neat! I think we are so predisposed to assume that grasping and
lifting things should look a certain way based on our own anatomy.

The big questions that come to mind are resilience or I guess you could call
it MTBF, and also hygiene.

A human hand knows when a thing it picks up has gotten it dirty and can change
a glove or go wash. This design in particular looks like it would hang on to
particles from things it’s picked up (thinking like bits of broccoli, but also
on the microscopic level) and be very difficult to clean with all that surface
area.

I think for picking groceries you would almost have to dedicate one arm for
each SKU placing items into bags that were ferried by, you could not have one
arm with a bag moving between SKUs and filling that bag.

I fully expect to see lights out grocery stores in the near future, I’m a bit
surprised no one has tried it yet. Maybe the last mile delivery still
dominates the cost too much.

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code_duck
I don’t think it would be difficult to clean or change a rubber lining. It
looks like it would be smooth when removed. Definitely it would need to be
used carefully around difficult to remove allergens.

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IanCal
If it's a balloon + paper, at scale it'd probably be cheap enough to consider
regularly disposable.

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ndnxhs
Which would be environmentaly disastrous

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pvaldes
only if non-biodegradable

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egypturnash
Is it just me or does this look like a real-world version of a Dalek’s
plunger?

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benj111
The title kind of misses the point for me.

A piece of string can lift 100 times its own weight. The interesting thing is
that it can lift a reasonable variety of different things delicately, in a
reasonably simple way.

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userbinator
Is it just me who thinks there something very viscerally repulsive about how
it looks when it "contracts"?

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djpilot
It reminds me of a certain kind of sheath. Don't want too come off as too
vulgar, but latin roots reveal all:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=sheath+latin](https://www.google.com/search?q=sheath+latin)

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GistNoesis
Impressive, but I'm not sure there aren't some class of objects that will give
it a hard time. From The videos it seems that it needs to engulf the object
and to do so the object must small enough and be well oriented. I'm not sure
it will pass the remote or smartphone on the table test.

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edoo
I'm going to crack up if the most effective general robot hand is a flap of
rubber. One potential benefit is those handthings won't be able to fire a gun
or wield a sharp weapon very well. I half joke but the robot maids are
probably going to be quite hackable.

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amelius
Can it grab a pebble that lies on a flat surface?

Or would the gripper get stuck to the surface?

(Not sure if the suction is used only to deform the gripper or also to attach
to the object)

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tmaly
If I could only get one of these installed in the claw crane, I might finally
be able to grab one of those elusive prizes.

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macawfish
Woah! Just imagine like 5 of these all working together to grab something...

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rick22
Isn't it too costly to produce vacuum for every object pick ?

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macawfish
I imagine this could work hydraulically too?

