YHK - yet another hacker news clone

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

77 points nharada 2 hours ago 35 comments

BHSPitMonkey 56 minutes ago | parent

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

HeyLaughingBoy 23 minutes ago | parent

Probably sell more of them as expensive cat toys.

yathern 51 minutes ago | parent

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

bigwheels 48 minutes ago | parent

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.

weirdish 34 minutes ago | parent

I'm sure with a little ingenuity you could rig up stringman to stab you to death!

fidotron 29 minutes ago | parent

Getting it to be forceful enough would be a bit interesting. Could certainly slowly strangle you in the cabling.

nancyminusone 26 minutes ago | parent

Depending on how high your ceilings are, dropping items from height could be quite uncomfortable.

monkmartinez 12 minutes ago | parent

It could also strangle you super fast, see here; Red Cable Robots Video[1]

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIr0ZtVVnBA

smnplk 17 minutes ago | parent

This reads very futuramaesque

doctorzook 11 minutes ago | parent

Slow and horrible, please.

adamsmark 8 minutes ago | parent

Poison tipped syringe!

KumaBear 22 minutes ago | parent

Why humanoid though. I’d want the most efficient design to complete the task at hand. Even if the thing looks like a hybrid of an octopus meets Freddy Krueger

dyauspitr 10 minutes ago | parent

The difference is, I want the most efficient design that can complete every physical task that I can. That design is probably humanoid.

monkeydust 42 minutes ago | parent

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 35 minutes ago | parent

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.

HeyLaughingBoy 22 minutes ago | parent

So, you fear someone else making it "useful in certain environments?"

stainablesteel 29 minutes ago | parent

get funding for this, it's worth a shot

conductr 25 minutes ago | parent

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

simon01 17 minutes ago | parent

When I was 12, it was my job to pick up all the toys my much younger sibling had thrown around all house. I spent an hour every day doing that. I wish someone had gave something like this back then. It would save hundreds of hours

nomel 10 minutes ago | parent

A fourth cable would allow you to keep the other three constrained up high, with fourth being to lower. Would require some close looped control to eliminate swaying though.

BorisMelnik 7 minutes ago | parent

I'm thinking about the legos with chocolate milk spilled all over it, or the bowl of cereal sitting on top of the kids toys.

I wonder how it would handle something like a blanket or pillow on top of the toys

HeyLaughingBoy 24 minutes ago | parent

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?

jameshart 20 minutes ago | parent

Range of motion would be confined to the space beneath the triangle bounded by the three anchor points. Most spaces are rectangular, so bounding it to four corners would seem likely to give a more useful range of motion.

stickfigure 11 minutes ago | parent

Perfect for your triangular rooms!

yeehawjared 22 minutes ago | parent

LOL @ tension is all you need

jayd16 20 minutes ago | parent

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.

monkmartinez 16 minutes ago | parent

These things are scalable... but I am not sure the PAF "partner acceptance factor" would pass depending on what you wanted to accomplish.

stickfigure 12 minutes ago | parent

Realistically, this has one application: The kids' room. PAF might be higher than you think.

smnplk 19 minutes ago | parent

Looks good, but I am waiting for Droneman

monkmartinez 19 minutes ago | parent

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 18 minutes ago | parent

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 15 minutes ago | parent

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 11 minutes ago | parent

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.