Forget 3D printed houses -- this brick-laying robot can build an entire house in 2 days - FastBrick

Now this is going to change the way homes are built. I wonder if this will significantly affect home prices and how this could be employed to erect homes in a quick efficient manner for areas affected by natural disasters, essentially building a community back in a matter of a couple/few weeks.

VERY cool tech here! Will enjoy watching this one take off.

Source

Stone masons beware: An Australian engineer has developed a bricklaying robot that can lay 1,000 bricks an hour, work 24/7, and complete the shell of a brick home in just two days.

FastBrick Robotics says its robot, named Hadrian, can achieve accuracy to within 0.5mm accuracy over a large area and erect about 150 homes a year. The robot sits on the end of a long boom to execute a building plan that's programmed into it.

Check out the animated video on this one:



Company website: www.fastbrickrobotics.net...

a reply to: Vasa Croe

wow thats crazy!

Lol if youre a mason you better get familiar with custom work!

Holy cow

A Chinese company is using 3D-printed blocks to build cheap and quickly assembled houses as a possible solution to the urgent problem of modernizing housing conditions in Chinese villages. The blocks are made from a mixture of sand, concrete and glass fiber, materials processed from common construction waste, which is pumped layer after layer through the top of a 6.6-meter-tall, 32-meter-long industrial printer.

Soon it willl be entire cities!

originally posted by: ManBehindTheMask
a reply to: Vasa Croe

wow thats crazy!

Lol if youre a mason you better get familiar with custom work!

Holy cow

Yeah.....0.5mm accuracy is quite a feat I think. Pretty slick. Of course it can't replace a real custom mason, but for the typical cookie cutter homes done these days....forget it!

They claim 1,000 bricks an hour... thats 2.7 bricks a second. the animation does not accomplish this.

Also, isn't there supposed to be mortar (concrete) on all sides of a brick, not just top/bottom as shown here? Are these some sort of Lego bricks that need less mortar?

I like where this is going though.

a reply to: Vasa Croe
Everything is great when working with computor programs or little bitty models in the real world it's totally different.
I've worked in the building industry all my working life. Now tell me what would happen if say the last brick it layed broke in two? would it know to remove it. What if it was a hot day and the mortar was going off quickly? Would it know to stop building and add water to the mix. IT AIN'T THAT SIMPLE.

originally posted by: crayzeed
a reply to: Vasa Croe
Everything is great when working with computor programs or little bitty models in the real world it's totally different.
I've worked in the building industry all my working life. Now tell me what would happen if say the last brick it layed broke in two? would it know to remove it. What if it was a hot day and the mortar was going off quickly? Would it know to stop building and add water to the mix. IT AIN'T THAT SIMPLE.

Well...I would venture to say that the company that built this machine has extensive background in building and engineering, so I would guess they took a lot of that knowledge into account when they engineered it. That or they engineered it for specific climate models.

As far as the bricks go, that could be another part of the engineering.....bricks that are made specifically for this machine to build with and won't break like other bricks, or need less mortar ow whatever. I would think a company building a machine such as this has alternate money making ideas such as proprietary bricks since there would likely not be a lot of revenue from just selling the machines themselves.

Here is another story on it with some insight from the designer.

Source

With more than A$7 million spent in research and development, Hadrian is able to take a pack of bricks, and handle, process and lay them without human intervention. A 3D computer aided design file ensures the machine cuts, routes and lays the bricks to a high level of accuracy using a 28 metre telescopic boom.

Hadrian can handle almost any size of brick on the market today, Pivac said. From one set position, it can even take into account the routing of channels for the electrical and plumbing structures that need to be laid in the wall, as well as windows and doors.

So it can handle most any size brick in the industry today, it cuts, routes and lays them and can account for electrical and plumbing and windows...etc....really cool!

originally posted by: JohnTheSmith
They claim 1,000 bricks an hour... thats 2.7 bricks a second. the animation does not accomplish this.

Also, isn't there supposed to be mortar (concrete) on all sides of a brick, not just top/bottom as shown here? Are these some sort of Lego bricks that need less mortar?

I like where this is going though.

I believe, from what I have read, that it routes the bricks in order for them to only need mortar on only the top and bottom, so yes, like legos in a way.

As far as the claim on how many an hour.....no clue...can't find anything other than their claim for that one.

a reply to: JohnTheSmith

meanwhile - in the real world

we have 60 minuites in each hour and 60 seconds in each minuite - got that ??????????? - its important

so - 60 * 60 = 3600 [ brought to you by basic arithmetic ]

so having established that there are indeed 3600 seconds in each hour .

if we accept the makers claim of " 1000 bricks laid / hour "

that actualy comes to 1 brick every 3.6 seconds

which orrifice did you full " 2.7 " from ?????????????????

They've actually tried doing this several times always boasting about how much faster/cheaper their robot will do the work but that's always in theory/labrotory conditions, once it's put into practice it'll never keep up with a person.

When I was in apprentice school I was very much interested in this because the industry was already an all time low and many of us were already adapting out skills to be able to work in som niche of the industry. I looked into robomasonry as I thought that would be awesome lol, orchestrating my own robot army as I build stuff that is lol. But alas after a good chunk of research these things never work out.

1 there's always set up and take down time and repair time. It's a lot cheaper to call AL into work cause bob skipped then it is to have extra robots laying around to fill in for broken models(maybe not forever tho)

2 in the world of masonry it's FAR from consistent. It's impossible to have consistent mortar and brick shape, ALWAYS quite a bit of variance that needs a human eye to give it the ole wiggle into the right place, right on tape measure isn't always the best place for it to go, it's more of an art then a skilled trade really. Even production high number masonry like say a khols, those were my favorite, half height 12" wide blocks that pretty much laid themselves. In the end what happens is a machine will always get to a point where it needs a human to fix its work or adjust every thing to work out so why not just have those guys do it right in the first place.

3 YOU MUST FOLLOW THE BLUE PRINTS and a machine won't be able to do that. If we adjusted the way construction works so we just let the machine lay the masonry then have the other trades come in and do iron work and sparky work to our finished work and measure accordingly a machine might fly, but now we're talking more time til finish, as it stands all the trades can work together because we can all assume that the other trades will meet up at the before agreed upon heights and lengths.

It's really just a cost thing. Currently men can take less then perfect mortar and less then perfect masonry units and combine them into an earlier agreed upon structure. If you want to spend insane amounts of money on some sort of perfect bricks and a mortar that is a perfect consistency every time you might as well of paid some dudes to come do the work, it would of been much cheaper and quicker.


Someday it will be possible once the bot will be able to finagle and wiggle according to its "eye" but that's not gonna be any time soon, the human arm and hand combined with our brain and eye is a very hard tool to copy. But once that's possible then robots will do masonry. They have robots in the auto plants now that can do some pretty complex tasking with cameras and AI with very minimal input from an operator so someday once the money is right I don't doubt that this will for sure be a reality but for now it's way cheaper/quicker/highest quality to just call up some grungy masons to come out and swear up a storm for a few weeks while they sweat the masonry into the wall.

Jobs are dead it's time to rethink capitalism and economy.

We no longer have a choice.

It seems that in the past 40-50 years we have found a way to build homes faster, and cheaper..yet the quality sucks and the prices are skyrocketing. My husband and I are looking for a home now. We have found a dream home (built in 1940--this home was built for the daughter of a man that was a town jeweler..he had the home built and the daughter never lived in it. She and her husband kept the property maintained perfectly..it's like this home was built yesterday..only it was 1940...they simply built it and walked away..a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 sunrooms virtual time capsule in mint condition) This home compared comps are around 99K...99K for custom built..real maple floors..custom cabinets..custom chandeliers..real wood details that include built in bookcases and staircases around the home! We looked at new construction homes before we found this gem..they are cheap..plastic-y..lower quality homes..made with off the shelf, cookie cutter crap..for 50-100K more..WHY..WHY do these crap homes sell for 100-200-300K and up..I mean to find a custom home with quality you really have to go into the 700-1.2M range..yet we are "hopefully..with fingers and toes crossed" going to get one for 99K or less..i just wish they would bring back smaller homes that are better built..with more thought and details. The cookie cutter-catalog homes make me want to puke.

a reply to: Neopan100

It seems that in the past 40-50 years we have found a way to build homes faster, and cheaper..yet the quality sucks and the prices are skyrocketing.

The sky rocking cost of homes has little to do with the cost of goods and services, its more based on what the consumer is willing to pay and what the banks are willing to LOAN.

I'm sure when these automated processes get perfected the savings will likely not be passed down to the consumers.

originally posted by: interupt42
a reply to: Neopan100

It seems that in the past 40-50 years we have found a way to build homes faster, and cheaper..yet the quality sucks and the prices are skyrocketing.

The sky rocking cost of homes has little to do with the cost of goods and services, its more based on what the consumer is willing to pay and what the banks are willing to LOAN.

I'm sure when these automated processes get perfected the savings will likely not be passed down to the consumers.

Probably be cheaper to buy one of the machines, hire a CAD engineer and make your own.

a reply to: interupt42

I know this..which leads me to believe people in general are cheap and tacky..and want to live like stepford duplicates..lacking any detail..or depth...I just loathe crappy homes..subdivision-y homes..something creeps me out about them..and all the cheap materials used. I am just so glad that fate/chance has given me an opportunity to purchase a home that has never before made it to MLS..I will live in that home until my dying days..

I guess I am just dumbfounded at WHY people keep buying the cheapo homes..at such exorbitant prices..I mean if you go into a subdivision that is 8-10 years old the homes that once looked all shiny and new with perfect plastic coverings...now look a little rundown. The vinyl siding tends to warp or become unlocked..the roof a little rough..the concrete cracked..all the cheapness rears it's ugly head..If I walk into a home that has 3" baseboards..I walk out...vinyl siding..I don't even bother...that is why REALTOR.com is a godsend..as long as there are plenty of pics I mean take a look at this gem Beautiful Cottage Home If my husband worked in this town..I wouldn't bat an eyelash at purchasing that home..it's so incredibly lovely!

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

I don't know about the US but here in England a mason works with stone and it is a brick layer that works with bricks .

a brick laying machine is not new , there was an article on this subject in the news about 4 years ago .

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Hmmm, Checking my math, it appears you are indeed, correct. As for how I came to my 2.7, you know "which orrifice did you full " 2.7 " from"

I believe the 2.7 came about as it lays 0.27% of a brick every second. My math was correct, but I must have fudged the result, as age is prone to do. Thanks for correcting my very honest mistake so politely, Mr. Ignorant.

One brick every 3.6 seconds sounds a lot more realistic. Although their animation is still just that, an unreal animation.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: interupt42
a reply to: Neopan100

It seems that in the past 40-50 years we have found a way to build homes faster, and cheaper..yet the quality sucks and the prices are skyrocketing.

The sky rocking cost of homes has little to do with the cost of goods and services, its more based on what the consumer is willing to pay and what the banks are willing to LOAN.

I'm sure when these automated processes get perfected the savings will likely not be passed down to the consumers.

Probably be cheaper to buy one of the machines, hire a CAD engineer and make your own.

LOL, I was thinking the same thing, but in reality consumer will be either banned from buying them

a reply to: Neopan100

I know this..which leads me to believe people in general are cheap and tacky..and want to live like stepford duplicates..lacking any detail..or depth..

ouch , I think that might be a bit rough. Ones tacky is another beauty I suppose.

I know this, tacky is not bound by cheapness. I know of plenty wealthy people that have spent a $hitload on what I would consider pure ugliness. I always joke that if you have to specify where the item came from or who did the work without anyone asking , its likely an overpaid turd.

..I mean if you go into a subdivision that is 8-10 years old the homes that once looked all shiny and new with perfect plastic coverings...now look a little rundown. The vinyl siding tends to warp or become unlocked..the roof a little rough..the concrete cracked..all the cheapness rears it's ugly head.

Now this Agree with , having owned several homes that were newly built and several older homes , there is no comparison to structure quality on old homes versus new homes.

However, the older homes do have their own issue although their structure might be more solid they do tend to have issues with electrical and plumbing.

Although I would stay away from any houses built during the recent boom and crash (2000-2011) , do to Chinese drywall and quick and burn build outs that created shoddy work across the industry. Those issues were not only present in the cookie cutter neighbourhoods but also existed in the multi million dollar custom homes as well.

If I walk into a home that has 3" baseboards..I walk out...vinyl siding..I don't even bother...that is why REALTOR.com is a godsend..as long as there are

Not everyone has that luxury which is dictated by money, location, and time frames. As you stated you are fortunate that you are able to have that luxury but not everyone has the taste or concerns.

However I know what you mean because I do not care for the cookie cutter type neighbours myself ,but I wouldn't look down on anyone for living in them either.

To some , shelter is just shelter. Although, I do see this type of technology evolving in combination with modular building in the future. Where home owners can add and remove sections of their home as needed.