Transapient Musings of an S6 Archailect

Built for Speed: Printing Buildings
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Contour Crafting is an effort to scale up rapid prototyping/manufacturing (a billion dollar industry to make 3 dimensional parts) and inkjet printing techniques to the scale of building multi-story buildings and vehicles. The process could accelerate the trillion dollar (US only) construction industry by 200 times. Projections indicate costs will be around one fifth as much as conventional construction. (Land prices are unchanged, so the actual prices of homes would not change as much in say Hawaii, Tokyo, Manhattan or San Francisco). Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning. [H/T to a reader Bonesteel] Contour crafting could be one part of a new manufacturing revolution

The machine will cost between $500K to $700K for average size (2000 sq ft -- 200 m2) detached houses. This is not much given that a concrete pump truck is now $300k-$400K. Note that with one machine numerous homes can be built. The first commercial machines to be available this year, 2008. The machine will be collapsible to form into an easy truck load. The unloading and setup will take between 1-2 hours.

Behrokh Khoshnevis is the visionary who has been driving this concept. He is the Director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) and Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at USC.

Initial plan is to use the technology for emergency shelters and low-income housing in underdeveloped countries (Mexico, with the demand for nearly 500,000 houses per year, seems to be a good starting choice for implementation), almost immediately after its development they will address local building codes for commercial deployment of CC in the US.

Because of the unprecedented speed of CC construction, attendant improvements in the construction inspection process will be required. They plan to develop advanced sensory systems and information technologies for automated real-time inspection and feedback to municipal computers overseeing ongoing CC construction activities at various locations.

Competing Construction Automation
There are two categories of automation considered by the Japanese construction companies. The first uses single task robots that can replace simple labor
activities at the construction sites. Single task robots can be classified by four different types- concrete floor finishing, spray painting, tile inspection, and material handling.

The second category consists of fully automated systems that can construct high
raised steel buildings or steel reinforced concrete buildings using prefabricated
components. An example of this approach is Big-Canopy, which is the world’s first automated construction system for building a precisely defined concrete structure and has four independent masts supporting an overhead crane which delivers components at the control of a simple joystick. All tasks are scheduled and controlled by a centralised information control system. The introduction of robotics at construction sites has contributed to productivity, safety, and quality improvements. Yet, the contribution of robotics at current levels is not revolutionary and current automation approaches are still geared toward conventional processes. Automating conventional processes (such as using a brick laying robot) is invariably expensive, hence the associated cost saving is minimal. Fast changing construction requirements and project complexities create complicated requirements and exceptional challenges for automation technology to meet.

The Big Canopy construction system can be divided into the following subsystems:
· a roof supported by four tower crane posts, which are situated outside the building
· a complex hoist system with three cranes mounted against the roof
· a jib crane on the roof to mount and to dismantle the tower crane posts
· a high-speed construction lift to all floors
· all components bar-coded for easy identification
· a material management system to manage the flow of materials and components

The Big Canopy automated construction system ensures good working and environmental conditions, shorter construction time (about 13% less), less waste and improved overall productivity (0.9% less cost).

There are Prefabricated homes
Modular homes
Panelized homes

Panelized home construction can complete the project in 90 days from the time we begin to dig. Custom plans generally take four-to-six months from start of construction to finish. The weather-tight shell finished in days, as opposed to the many weeks required with "site framing."

So all prior efforts to improve building construction are vastly inferior to contour construction if contour construction delivers on its goals.

Three subsystems are required to build a complete house in one day. The Extrudable Materials and Fabrication (EMF) thrust will research and develop materials, extrusion systems, and structures built by extrusion of materials. The Modular Components and Assembly (MCA) thrust will research and develop the non-extrudable components required by the grand challenge such as reinforcement, electrical, plumbing, and sensor systems and on the robots required both to assemble these components and to deploy the extrusion systems developed by the first thrust. The Integrated Software Systems (ISS) thrust will research and develop the software needed to go from design through construction, including planning and controlling the behavior of the multitude of robots to be developed by the previous thrust, and providing the logistical support required for constructing a house in a day, or beyond this to constructing a full community in a small number of days.

Environmental benefits
Globally more than 40 percent of all raw materials are consumed in the construction process. Each of the 6 million new houses built in the United States have 3-7 tons of waste from construction.

FURTHER READING
This concept is like the inflatable electric car idea. Rethinking the process for how a major segment of our economy works to enable cost breakthroughs.

Inflatable cars and scaling up printer technology for making buildings are the kind of powerful ideas that could enable acceleration of economic growth even without successful development super technologies (like fusion, molecular nanotechnology or super artificial intelligence). It is similar to how Henry Ford's mass production methods accelerated economic growth at the beginning of 1900s. However, there is no reason we cannot re-invent the car and construction and develop super technologies. So even without molecular nanotechnology there
could be a step up in economic growth rate with ideas like this and inflatable electric cars. These ideas are also very compatible with a nanofactory world.

Youtube Contour Crafting videos

Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies at the University of Southern California

The goal of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) is to develop the science and engineering needed for rapid automated fabrication of objects of various size up to mega-scale structures such as, boats, industrial objects, public art and whole building structures.

Selective Inhibition sintering (SIS) method is capable of making plastic as well as metallic parts without the use of laser.

Megascale fabrication article

Agile MEMS robots 100 times smaller than previous robotic designs
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Duke university makes new MEMS (microelectromechanical system) based robots. Each microrobot is shaped something like a spatula but with dimensions measuring just microns, or millionths of a meter. They are almost 100 times smaller than any previous robotic designs of their kind and weigh even less. The devices are about 60 microns wide, 250 microns long and 10 microns high that each run off power scavenged from an electrified surface. Propelling themselves across such surfaces in an inchworm-like fashion impelled by a “scratch-drive” motion actuator, the microrobots advance in steps only 10 to 20 billionths of a meter each, but repeated as often as 20,000 times a second.

Two microrobots can be seen pirouetting to the music of a Strauss waltz on a dance floor just 1 millimeter across. In another sequence, the devices pivot in a precise fashion whenever their boom-like steering arms are drawn down to the surface by an electric charge. This response resembles the way dirt bikers turn by extending a boot heel.

New research summaries describe the group’s latest accomplishment: getting five of the devices to group-maneuver in cooperation under the same control system.

“Our work constitutes the first implementation of an untethered, multi-microrobotic system"

Better Robots and AI are not the only ways your job could disappear in the future
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When people talk about the Technological Singularity and advanced robots and artificial (general) intelligence, it seems a large part of the denial of that future is the idea that "a machine cannot do what I do" or "a machine cannot replace my job".

It does not necessarily take more "intelligence".

People have known about vending machines for decades.

But was it smarter computers and robots that enabled fully automated convenience stores in the US and Japan ?

The picture is not the japanese version but a Kroger automated convenience store in the USA.

There are more than 5.5 million vending machines operating in Japan--that's one for every 20 people--and last year they raked in a total of $56 billion in sales, according to the Japan Vending Machine Manufacturers Association (JVMA). You deposit your coins and make your choice: dried squid or hair tonic, batteries or green tea, boxers or beer. Sanyo's Auto Shop Vendor isn't just bigger than the Coke-and-coffee machines of the past; advanced mechanical engineering allows it to handle what was until recently an unthinkable variety of necessities and impulse purchases. "This is four vending machines in one," exults Sanyo deputy general manager Misao Awane. "It holds 200 different products, at three different temperatures."

The question is not can a machine do exactly what I do the way I do it ?
The question: Is there a successful business model where what you do is no longer necessary ? The good news is that people will be freed up to be involved in new businesses that grow the economy.

There have been more mundane job displacement:
There is self checkout at Walmart, Home Depot and other stores
Self service gas stations
Ecommerce where shopping and business transactions are mostly removed from bricks and mortar
Wikipedia killing encyclopedia companies.
Collaboration systems eliminating repeating the same research work many times over.
Open source software eliminating jobs where the same work is repeated at many companies.

Automated teller machines or websites like Paypal can reduce the people involved in financial businesses. So can new investment products like Exchange Traded Funds

Going down the list of jobs and looking at how many people have different jobs which are the jobs that are safe from displacement ? Even if a class of jobs is not completely eliminated could demand be severely reduced ?

23.3 million jobs in the USA for office administration and support. (New business systems that require fewer people. Web 2.0 companies only need a handful of people or one person to do what took hundreds only a few years ago).
14.3 million jobs in the USA for sales and related work. (Automation and new sales processes)
11.3 million jobs in food preparation and serving. (Improved frozen meals)
10.1 million jobs in production. (Automation and process re-engineering)
9.6 million jobs in transportation and material moving. (more local production : high rise farming, rapid prototyping and manufacturing systems)
8.3 million jobs in education, training and library. (online learning, MIT recordings of the best professors.)
6.9 million healthcare practitioners and technical. (Biomarker tracking with cheap devices to catch and treat diseases early or in the developing stages. Keep people healthier and avoiding the need for more costly and people intensive intervention).
6.7 million jobs in construction and extraction (pre-fab buildings and panels).
6.0 million Management. Re-engineering to flatten organizations and take out layers of management. Web 2.0'ing a business. Reinvent it where a lot fewer people are needed.
5.4 million Installation, Maintenance, and Repair. Redesign things where the quality is better and it does not break or does not need service or is simple to install.
etc...

It is good to increase productivity because it is the process by which an economy becomes more wealthy.

FURTHER READING
Smart stores: re-inventing stores around RFID

A submersible pump is one that has a sealed motor, fitted in a pump body. The total assembly is immersed in the fluid that needs to be pumped. The main advantage of this type of pump is that it can offer a considerable amount of lifting power, as it does not rely on external air pressure.

A submersible pump has a system of mechanical seals that is used to prevent the fluid being pumped from entering the motor, resulting in a short circuit. A pump can either be attached to a pipe or a flexible hose.

Some of the types of submersible pumps are bladder pumps, bilge and ballast pumps, borehole pumps, booster pumps, and centrifugal pumps. Other examples are condensate pumps, dewatering pumps, fountain pumps, grinder pumps, micro pumps, sampling pumps, trash pumps, utility pumps, and well pumps. Some submersible pumps are manufactured for particular applications. These pumps are water submersible pumps, sewage submersible pumps, 12-volt submersible pumps, sand submersible pumps, irrigation submersible pumps, and solar submersible pumps. Solar submersible pumps have many uses and are suitable for slow and steady water transfer into a holding tank.

Submersible pumps are found in many appliances. Single stage pumps are utilized for drainage, sewage pumping, common industrial pumping, and slurry pumping. Multiple stage submersible pumps are normally used for water abstraction. These pumps can also be found in oil wells. Moreover, submersible pumps can be positioned directly in a pond and require comparatively little installation. These pumps are also relatively silent.

The four main specifications that should be considered while choosing a submersible pump are maximum expulsion flow, maximum discharge pressure, horsepower, and discharge size.

Earlier, the main drawback of submersible pumps was that its pump seal could rupture and release oil coolant into the water. However, newer pumps are magnet-driven, and no longer require a coolant. These magnet-driven pumps are more expensive, but they consume less electricity.

Pumps provides detailed information on Pumps, Water Pumps, Heat Pumps, Sump Pumps and more. Pumps is affiliated with Sun Powered Heat Pumps.

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Sales Training For Engineers & Techies.
Manuals On How To Sell Technical Products And Services, Find New Clients Or Hire An Effective Technical Salesperson.

Tue, 03 Jun 2008

What can you do with the API? Among other things you can upload patient medical records and get patient medical data to provide additional, personalized, functionality. This is clearly targeted at developing an ecosystem around the Google Health system. Google Health supports CCR (or at least a subset), and in theory, companies can set up services that allow hospitals/health systems to communicate with Google Health, and hopefully some day, enable health data portability between health systems.

Will be interesting to see how the API gets used? How will any privacy concerns be overcome? Who will the early adopters be? We will have to wait and see.

Wed, 28 May 2008

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope
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Google and Microsoft should not be our only options for 3D mapmaking of the world and galaxies. It would be useful if amateurs would automate their telescopes to point to the sky at specific positions, have servers that broadcast position requests, and then compile the photographic information into an online virtual observatory, free for anybody to download (no matter the (unfortunate) bandwidth costs). See the virtual observatory project..

I think that Microsoft has just surpassed Google in one discipline. WorldWide Telescope is better than Google Sky. The latter is included in Google Earth.

Tue, 20 May 2008

Major Company Going for Automotive X PRIZE
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One of the things I've been hoping to see with the Automotive X PRIZE is major companies with large-scale manufacturing capabilities entering the competition. I like to see the small teams and their innovative approaches, but I also like to see "dinosaurs" (as some NewSpace people refer to the large government-oriented companies in their industry) grow "fur". They can do things that small companies can't - each has its advantages.

Here's the news I've been waiting for, from X PRIZE Cars:

Tata Motors to Enter Two Vehicles in Automotive X Prize - Tata plans to enter in the alternative and mainstream class competitions. Tata is a multi-industry giant:

The Tata Group is one of India's largest and most respected business conglomerates, with revenues in 2006-07 of $28.8 billion or Rs129,994 crore (not including Corus financials), the equivalent of about 3.2 per cent of the country's GDP, and a market capitalisation of $66.26 billion as on April 30, 2008. Tata companies together employ some 289,500 people.

X PRIZE Cars notes that Tata Motors alone is pretty big. Now we'll have to see how the other major auto manufacturers react.

The accompanying press release mentions some other new contestants:

Other recent entrants to the Letter of Intent program include Motive Industries of Canada, Western Washington University, Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies, Inc. of Chicago, IL and TTW Turin Italy of Turin, Italy. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young also intends to enter his 1960 Lincoln Continental conversion into the competition, along with his partner Jonathan Goodwin.

There's a lot more news in this recent X PRIZE Cars post.

posted at: 23:27 | path: /tech | permanent link to this entry

Matt Wood has a great great screencast of a talk around some very relevant problems (things that touch my interests as a blogger and in my day job as well).

No surprise that I agree with him on the importance of distributed data and how we can start leveraging the web for a field that gets more and more data intensive by the day.

comparison of iPod nano (2G), iPhone, and iPod (clickwheel)(5G). Items are listed from top to bottom.

Nat Torkington has a thoughtful post up on the O’Reilly Radar where he writes about ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp as he calls it).

I want to cast that problem a little differently. Let us assume we have a scalable cloud that we can tap into, perhaps with databases that easily scale to support streaming data. Let us imagine a lab, with instruments streaming out data, with devices consuming those data, and systems that can make decisions based on the data they are receiving. Such an interconnected work, a world with pervasive, ubiquitous computing might sound like science fiction, but over the past few years, we have slowly but surely built up the beginnings of an infrastructure that will make this scenario possible, perhaps a lot faster than we thought. The iPhone, the Chumby, the Bug, these are just early examples, as are streaming video services and communication platforms like Twitter and XMPP.

Of course, before we get there, we really need to develop systems that are smart about making decisions and filtering information, otherwise, we’re just going to get buried in a deluge of data that will make our heads spin, individually and collectively.

Update: On a semi-related note, here’s an Ignite talk from Where 2.0 that is an example of where we are headed (via O’Reilly Radar)

Mon, 12 May 2008

You've read about it - now you too can follow your own pet vegetation on twitter! -

Why? Because I swear, those little bars on my laptop screen are just too darn hard to see. - Wi-Fi detector shirt

@ Maker Faire MAKE's Phil Torrone and Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries talked about emerging opportunities for makers to create and sell their work - here are our slides and notes - ZIP (27mb). EDN also has a write up. Each year we've seen more and more makers do what they love (making) as a full time job, we put together some of the observations, trends and more on how you could go about doing this too. After our talk we met about a dozen kit makers, we hope to have their kits in the MAKE store soon!

Now you can truly see why our commenters dubbed Python the programming language that "can do anything." One intrepid (and hungry) hacker, possibly named Nick Jensen, put together a small script that tracks Domino's Pizza orders from phone call to doorbell ring. Download and launch the script (with instructions at the link), plug in your phone number, and you don't have to get up until that cheese-covered saucer is at the door. It's just another true sign of how life-changing the command line can really be. Thanks, HowToGeek!

Instead of putting the onus on you to choose the best keyword, just-launched semantic search engine Powerset can find the answers you seek on the Wikipedia using natural language. Type things like "what is a life hack" or "paintings by Salvador Dali" and Powerset extracts those answers from Wikipedia and lays them out on an attractive page. CNET reports:

Freeduino is free.
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I recently acquired and built a Freeduino kit from nkcelectronics. The freeduino board is a clone of the Arduino and is 100% compatible, right down to the pin placements. It was a painless build, and the board worked right away. If you want to have a machine where you've built all the boards yourself, or you want to save $10 and buy a kit, this board is for you. Or, if you just want a board that is as free as free can get.

From the Freeduino website:

Powerset brings the Semantic Web to Wikipedia
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Powerset has launched a public beta of its Wikipedia search engine that brings a new, rich semantic dimension via natural language query processing to Wikipedia, greatly improving the search and reading experience. Powerset's engine, based on techology licensed from PARC, has read 2.5 million Wikipedia pages and extracted "meaning" from the sentences, creating a navigation and semantic layer on top of the popular Web encyclopedia. Powerset has also indexed Freebase, Metaweb's evolving, open database of structured information. The search result page presents Factz, a summary of key information extracted from Wikipedia pages. It also shows a tag cloud of things and actions found by its linguistic analysis engine on the page. Powerset has said that the longer term plan is to read, linguistically analyze and index 20 billion documents on the Web. (Source: http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9938959-80.html?tag=newsmap)

posted at: 18:19 | path: /tech | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 11 Jun 2008

Tue, 03 Jun 2008

Wed, 28 May 2008

Tue, 20 May 2008

Mon, 12 May 2008