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Robots like to be touched too
irreverant take on robotics and automation
Thomas Norris
November 12, 2022
The robotics and automation newsletter not written by an old white guy..
Actually written by a middle aged white guy and his buddies
Topics of the Day
Amazon has a new toy that they're not going to share
The US Army is creating some sick machines
Worst marketing rebrand EVER
Tech of the Day: Barcode Scanners
Sad Robot Making Art for it's Human Masters
Stop hogging the good stuff Amazon
It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's a well..robotic arm...named Sparrow, like a bird. Amazon's robotics teams are hard at work putting together solutions to their internal struggles. All the news today was about Sparrow, their robotic arm that can pick items from a bin. The news makes this sound like it's a fresh idea and that Amazon unlocked some kind of magical robot capability. They didn't. And on top of that the only one that will benefit from this tech is Amazon. Just like their mobile bots Amazon is not going to share this technology. So as great as it is that Amazon has figured out bin picking, who cares about their system. If you need help with inner bin picking talk to Soft Robotics or RightHand Robotics...they can help you get this done.
I'm not sure why Amazon keeps rubbing it into everyones' faces (Walmart) but they're kind of acting like the rich kid with all the cool toys that never shares. The irony is that there are a lot of companies already using tech that's far better than Amazons but they are staying quiet. Keep on keeping on Amazon, nobody cares about your tech unless you're going to share.
US Army, take my money and do more cool shit please
I want a robotic breacher. Just to say I have one. I come from a military family so I'm used to seeing really awesome military gear. but our armed forces are moving fast to modernize our tech. I've seen the speedboats that the Navy Seals use, stood next to F-14 Tomcats, been on the deck of an aircraft carrier while it's at sea so I'm no stranger to seeing absurd looking equipment. This latest gadget, the US Army's Assault Breacher Vehicle Remote Control System, allows the service to clear minefields and dangerous zones with ease and with zero risk to loss of life. Now I'm not an advocate of using automation or robots for taking life but for prevention of death or deterrent I am all for it. As we are seeing in the Ukraine/Russian conflict robotics, drones, and tech will be at the front lines of future wars.
Tech of the Day
Beep, bloop, Barcode Scanners
See this guy? He's super happy. Want to know why? Cause he's using a barcode scanner instead of writing now part numbers or skus. Oh whats a sku? Stock Keeping Unit. That's what peeps in the business refer to the unique number for a product or item.
How does a barcode scanner work? It's pretty cool. Basically the scanner sends out a beam of light that passes across a surface, then it measures how much light bounces back. Mind blowing that someone spent the time to figure this out.
There are tons of different barcodes but the most common now are the 1D and 2D style. D stands for dimension. A 1D barcode is like the upc on a can of beans and 2D is like a qr code. Commonly you would use a 1D to keep a part number on a part or maybe a serial number but with a 2D you can have much more information that you grab from a single scan, like you could put a model number, serial number, production date, etc all in one scan.
So to get the information from a barcode scanner into a system...it's actually pretty easy. Most scanners are treated like a "keyboard wedge" and will simply put the output of the scan whereever your cursor is focused on the screen. The first time I played with a barcode scanner I hooked one up via USB to my laptop, opened up Notepad, then scanned a barcode and boom numbers appeared on my screen. The most basic scanners simply output what they scan but there are programmable barcode scanners that you can actually program to do things, like add carrage returns, look for certain snippets of characters, and other cool things.
You can pick up a cheap scanner for under $100 with a good programmable one running about $1K, and others running into the $5-$10K range.
My favorite are the Symbol brand barcode scanners...which are now Zebra scanners. With my very favorite programmable one being the Zebra DS3678.
Forced Plug of the Day
Todays newsletter is being brought to you by QRscramble.com. They offered to send me an IOU for a Porsche. Which that's probably second to getting an actual Porsche. If you're looking for a dynamic qr code generator that you can reuse check out what they have going on. www.QRscramble.com
Want your company to be featured? Sign up HERE
Seriously?
Marketing is fun, it's creative, it's innovating. But the folks at Hy-Tek Material Handling missed the mark..
I wonder how the meeting went. A bunch of folks sitting around the conference room..the top guy says, "hey we need to come up with a new, hip name". They all stammer around thinking of different names. Fasttech Automation, Hipster Technologies, Laserbeam Solutions. Then someone sits up and yells, "Hy-Tek Intralogistics!" and the room erupts in applause. All the suits get up and leave the conference room, the boss winks at the genius that came up with the name and offers a raise, which of course the company man declines.
Hey Hy-Tek...you didn't need to announce this. Nobody calls you Hy-Tek Material Handling and no one will refer to you as Hy-Tek Intralogistics.
Happy Saturday! Go out and do something fun!
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Have feedback? Not sure that I'm looking for it. If you have something constructive you can catch me on Twitter. @robotsrcoming
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