Good News For Contour Crafting
The History Channel and Invent Now, Inc., a division of the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, has selected Contour Crafting as one of 25 semi-finalists from over 4,200 entries in the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge! Contour Crafting and its story will be featured in a special exhibition that will travel to museums in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and to the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Akron, Ohio. This exhibition will open on April 7, 2006.
posted by Alborz @ 9:15 PM
23 Comments:
Congratulations on the good news!
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Congratulations! I will be joining you in New York, as one of the top 25, as well.
Congratulations! I will be joining you in New York as well.
This technology will certainly have a huge impact on the well being of people all over the world and will prepare us to build habitats beyond our planet.
Congratulations on the good news! I wish your project every success.
I do have a question though: Is the crane system shipped to the site disassembled, and put together there? It would seem that moving the crane around (and using it on uneven terrain, such as terraced hillsides and so forth) would be the greatest difficulty.
Of course, conventional construction projects have ways to move cranes of comparable size...
Also: CC would seem to be a terrific way to build ships! Or perhaps "sea habitats" that would use wave, sun, and wind power to provide renewable-energy living for Earth's growing population...
I agree with "p.t. galt" that moving the crane around will be the greatest difficulty, especially when you have to ship it to the lunar surface!! In addition you have to actually _build_ a mega-scale precision machine that can operate in harsh environments - covered in mud, salt water, or the heat/cold of outer space - and still be cheap enough to recover the cost over a reasonably small number of buildings.
I realize that the CC business is relatively late in the design stage already, but why haven't you guys used a parallel kinematic mechanism such as the NIST RoboCrane? In short, it consists of an octahedral frame and six computer-controlled winches suspending a movable platform. The cables can be extended and retracted to achieve motion in any direction, and a limited amount of rotation. The octahedral frame is one of the lightest, most rigid structures, and is simple to build and transport. There are no sliding, precision ways to distort or jam up. I see a collapsable octahedral frame made of telescoping tubes to be easy enough for one man on foot to set up in any location, with no foundation and no tools. How can you go wrong with that?
http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/projects/robocrane/
-fenn
PS: yes, the software to control it is open source, so you can start playing today! The mechanism is generally referred to as a "hexapod"
http://www.linuxcnc.org/
PPS blame jacob everist for attracting the likes of me
While I'm at it, I might as well mention, I wrote up a small page about hexapods/robocranes here: http://www1.atwiki.com/gingery_machines/pages/hexapod
Congratulations!
I think the technology would be best for building the exterior walls and ceilings. Instead of a huge crane, I think a robotic scizzor lift could do the job from the center of the foundation and then exit out the front door opening to complete the roof. Great video on your concept! If the concrete slumps too quickly then how about an extruded plastic form on the front and backside of the concrete using recycled old milk jugs or soda bottles?
saw your invention on PBS. awesome! good job!
I seen a product called Zipblocks. They are a newly emerging technology that be used to build create virtually anything via people, robotics, or both. Their technology is so simple but yet so versatile. Their website is www.zipblocks.com . It's a horrible website...but if you do a little digging you'll be fascinated.
have you heard of grancrete? it sounds like it would be the perfect building paste for the contour craft machine!
10:15 18/1/2007
News???
Is there going to be an entry on the upcoming test in L.A.?
The size of the crane strikes me as inelegant, in an era where we ought to be looking at smaller, lighter, more flexible. I have thought of laminated ferrocement made by small robots who would crawl around a skeleton structure, which could be an air form in some circumstances, stretched wires in others. I see them working 24/7, under partly automated supervision and sending data back to the central computer on what they are doing. If lots of them can be built inexpensively, after the design is worked out, you can have an army of little coordinated workers. If the skeleton structure is lightly assembled lightweight steel with temporary braces, some other lightweight robots can probably put it up, and the “beefer-upper” robots can then crawl around on magnetized mini-caterpillar treads. Now the emphasis is on relatively leisurely movement of hundreds or thousands of small things, which may result in more construction yield for the energy expenditure. Moving big things around precisely and quickly has a lot of downsides and stresses I would rather not deal with.
The size of the crane strikes me as inelegant, in an era where we ought to be looking at smaller, lighter, more flexible. I have thought of laminated ferrocement made by small robots who would crawl around a skeleton structure, which could be an air form in some circumstances, stretched wires in others. I see them working 24/7, under partly automated supervision and sending data back to the central computer on what they are doing. If lots of them can be built inexpensively, after the design is worked out, you can have an army of little coordinated workers. If the skeleton structure is lightly assembled lightweight steel with temporary braces, some other lightweight robots can probably put it up, and the “beefer-upper” robots can then crawl around on magnetized mini-caterpillar treads. Now the emphasis is on relatively leisurely movement of hundreds or thousands of small things, which may result in more construction yield for the energy expenditure. Moving big things around precisely and quickly has a lot of downsides and stresses I would rather not deal with.
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Congrads!!! BTW, I heard via http://www.inhabitat.com/category/prefab-housing/ that you might be doing a real build of a real full size house in California. Can you post some details?
How about an update? Its been almost a year since you had one... whats the status?!
Any updates? Technology like this should be in the public eye! I know corporations would like to hide it, but come on, give us an update.
Did the real world trial happen?
Did it succeed or fail?
What is the structural integrity of a building built by the machine - will it with stand a hurricane,tropical storm, me pushing on it, car hitting it, etc.
This technology could change the world as we know it, yet noone seems to be really pushing it.
Mike
Hopefully you an bring the estimated cost of the machines down also! With the machine and materials you would still be at $1,000,000 just to start, and the homes cost would be a LOT higher in order for people to recoup their money FAST, and also make a greedy profit.
What youre doing is great. I think getting a sponsorship, a deserving family and make that family a home (the size of the home based on the sponsorship money) and try to get some press coverage.
If its a success everyone will be knocking down your door to use your machines for their construction! (IMHO)
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