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📣 Topics of the Day 📣

• $10M Fun Money

• The Beast Mows

• My Robot Girlfriend Is A Stripper

• Tech of the Day: CNC Programming

• ⭐ Job Posting of the Day! ⭐

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$10M Fun Money

Another day another funding announcement in the warehouse automation space. Last week Locus announced a Series Y, X, or whatever round their up to now. But this is a bit of old news that slipped under the radar but is a game changer!

Gather AI...gather what? They seem to have figured out some magic or they've built vaporware. They take drones, add vision, and software and voila they have a barcode reading, inventory tracing, volume estimating beauty of a system. I've been in at least a thousand warehouses and facilities where this system was needed. Does your Billy Bob say he can't find the boxes the WMS states is there, you mean the one that were put in the wrong spot or stolen? Hold on, I need to digress a little and jump up onto my soapbox.

INVENTORY DOES NOT MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR! I absolutely HATE it when people accept that inventory that comes into their facility, which costs money, just can't be found. It's freaking ridiculous that anyone would accept this. If your facility is ok with inventory going missing someone needs to be fired. Every nut and bolt (that's a bit of a stretch) should be accounted for. Did you know that in aircraft engine assembly operations nuts and bolts can not go missing. You know what happens with missing fasteners during an engine build? They end up destroying an engine at 40,000 feet. Babies are crying, men are soiling themselves, women are hogging the oxygen masks..so DON'T accept missing inventory.

OK, I feel better now so let's get back to Gather AI. What I find fascinating is how they can read so many barcode types, most which are likely placed on boxes askew, and in different locations. I'd like to see this tech mounted onto forklifts, carts, and anything else that moves around the warehouse. I don't see why this has to be tied specifically to drones!

The Beast Mows

In a previous newsletter I talked about autonomous mowers. Those we're not mowers. They were pretending to be mowers. This thing..from Renu Robotics. Holy crap! It's A Mower! The thing looks like a bush hog (for anyone that didn't grow up on a farm that's the name of the big mower deck that gets pulled behind a tractor) on steroids. If I had one I'd probably bolt a lawn chair to it and ride around on it. It just looks fun and I think every red blooded American that drinks PBR needs one. And when your buddies come over tell them to hold your beer while you fire this bad boy up. These guys seem to be targeting solar farms but screw it, I bet if you have enough cash they'll sell it to anyone that'll buy. Also, if you need to ask how much is it..then you can't afford one. This would not be a logical purchase, but instead an emotional one like buying a $3M Pagani hypercar.

Tech of the Day: CNC Programming

Yep, I know how to write CNC code. Super easy if you know what you're doing. In college we actually started with NC code and then moved up to CNC. What the heck do these acronyms stand for you ask. NC = Numerical Control, CNC = Computer Numerical Control. This is the code fed into a mill, lathe, or other machining center/equipment that tells it what to do. The main difference is that NC is the old fashioned way of programming one of these machines. Kind of like using a scantron. CNC is how most machines are programmed nowadays and basically it's just a flat file like a text file that has lines of instructions.

G-Code is the language that's used to write CNC code. It's super simple with the complexities being in the details. So you have some like G01 X32 Y15 Z-1.000 F400. The G is the command type, then you have your coordinates to travel to, and F would be the Feed..how fast the machine moves to get there. I've had to write this code and go run it on a machine. It's tedious and you have to understand speeds and feeds and how they relate to the cutting tool you're using, etc. But alas! Technology saves the day. There is CAM (computer aided manufacturing) software that can now take your 3D CAD model and it can create the code for you. Be careful though..you will still want to verify the code just in case there's an error!

Come and Get Your Dinner

Have you every asked someone to pay for something and they just say no. You know how that feels, that uncomfortable moment, those tears welling up, repressed childhood memories coming to the surface. But then you just say OK and give them their stuff. Well that's kind of how it went with the guys at Cartken.

Cartken is shaping up to be a direct competitor to Starship Technologies. They make these tiny little wheeled robots that deliver your coffee, lunch, and probably anything else you want delivered while you're on a college campus. I bet if these start delivering alcohol and cannabis a lot of them will go missing so maybe don't get into that business. I'm a sucker for an underdog story so let's see how this plays out!

Oh and you have to watch some of these robot fails!

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My Robot Girlfriend Is A Stripper

Oh wow! So no, I did not search the keywords robot and stripper and sex. Absolutely not. Or did I? I'll let you believe what you'd like but either way all I can say is wow. I found myself following the rabbit down a really strange path and it started with this TikTok video of a Japanese pole dancing robot. So strange! I get us humans are pretty primal but is this how we're going to solve our depending on the sex business? Putting in some robots? After finding this first video I thought, hmm, I wonder if there's more of these types of robots. And yes, yes there is. All kinds. Now that I've stoked your curiosity...You're Welcome and good luck unseeing what you'll find.

⭐JOB POSTING OF THE DAY⭐

Are you soft? Do you embody softness, a gentle touch, a soft caress? Well do I have the gig for you! Soft Robotics is hiring for an Senior Applications Engineer out of their Bedford, Massachusettes location. You'll be able to travel the country helping clients figure out the best way to utilize Soft Robotic's line of grippers. Go ahead, apply. But if you could when you meet them make sure you use the word soft over and over again in the interview. I'd love to eventually here about that story. FYI..news travels fast of weird stuff in this business!

Have feedback or want to contribute a video, article or tacos? Maybe I'm interested maybe I'm not. If you have something constructive you can catch me on Twitter. @robotsrcoming or email us at [email protected]

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