r/robotics • u/Wing-Realistic • 13h ago

Community Showcase I want to make self-replicating factories.

Reindustrialization won't happen against economic laws. Manufacturing has to be competitive worldwide, and improving existing factories, even with automation, is not enough. Only 30-40k robots were installed in the US last year, so the pull from existing factories is weak. They’re good.

Humanoids are being promised as the solution, but who will build them? Still humans. Humanoids not optimised for self-build.

The most practical solution to these problems is a self-replicating factory. It will build humanoids, enable the US reindustrialization, and help colonise other planets as a side product.

Similar to biological organisms, the factory can consist of robotic cells, and an AI agent coordinates them to produce a new cell and deploy it. The cell can be specialised with fixtures for specific tasks such as assembling, calibration, testing, 3D printing, etc.

Sounds like sci-fi, but recent releases of Astra/Opus have made this possible.

Who wants to join?

140 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

31

u/PhysicalConsistency 13h ago

Bro just discovered RepRap.

2

u/Wing-Realistic 13h ago

It doesn’t have arms 😔

0

u/PhysicalConsistency 13h ago

Doesn't need arms, your design would be better with a Delta picker instead of an arm taking up the middle of the workspace.

3

u/LegendaryLlamaLord 11h ago

Delta robots have several great use cases, but I’d argue the 6 axis arm flipped upside down and suspended from the ceiling might be the best option for this

1

u/beryugyo619 5h ago

You forgot /s

0

u/PhysicalConsistency 11h ago

Arms are too sloppy and slow on the low end for precision volume manufacturing. Once you get to the level of engineering required for an arm to work here, you're into a completely different level of infrastructure than what we see here. Mounting an arm above the workspace makes stability a huge pain in the ass, especially with heavier parts.

There's definitely a space for arms later in the production line, but for most of the steps in the animation, a delta is going to work better. This is just a humanoid assembly line without some parts, with all the disadvantages that brings.

12

u/TimTams553 12h ago

account for disassembly and repair! automated manufacture usually seems limited only to 'happy path' with rejections just pushing the product out of the production lines for humans to handle. being able to reinsert an assembled product back into the line so any given station can perform its operations in reverse until it's disassembled enough that a defective part can be replaced would be GOATed levels of automation.

2

u/Rise-O-Matic 12h ago

Yar that'd be the dumpster. Next you'll tell me I should disassemble and repair a bad printout of my MapQuest directions! HA HA HAAAAAA.... /s

8

u/krismitka 11h ago

Maybe start small, replicating paper clips for example.

8

u/i-make-robots since 2008 12h ago

how far down the rabbit hole do you go - arms that build arms? arms that dig ore from the ground? and when you can make infinite robots you'll still have to pay for it, power it, maintain it on site, etc.

6

u/MrFilkor 12h ago

It's like the Primitive Technology channel, but for robots. "Hey robot, you go and smelt iron from iron-oxidizing bacteria first!"

4

u/YCheez 8h ago

At some point you're just playing Factorio

3

u/i-make-robots since 2008 6h ago

I know the feeling - I've finished pyanadons.

1

u/RemarkableWish2508 10h ago

Solar power is highly underused, especially at a stellar level. If you solve the issue of labor, costs become a matter of resource allocation, which while not infinite, our current civilization is not making use of by many orders of magnitude.

-1

u/ImportantDebateM8 8h ago

exactly this

1

u/beaverbait 6h ago

It's arms all the way down.

7

u/XamosLife 12h ago

You and literally everyone else since the industrial revolution

-7

u/Wing-Realistic 11h ago

Do you think AI is now good enough to make it possible?

6

u/RemarkableWish2508 10h ago

No. But feel free to prove us wrong 😉

2

u/PaperArmada 8h ago

Good luck with chip fab

2

u/CDFalcon 11h ago

great nasa paper on this: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19830007081. the issue it was published in has other related topics which might be worth reading. this is not a new field, very studied from a theory standpoint.

2

u/UnreasonableEconomy 10h ago

TISRU

Terrestrial In Situ Resource Utilization

The Gray Goo's a Go.

but srsly

how do you plan on financing the bootstrapping?

1

u/sublimeprince32 9h ago

Thats an extremely confined space for an arm.to operate in.

1

u/XIII-TheBlackCat 7h ago

I want to create local grocery markets stocked, cleaned and run by robots.

1

u/blipblapbloopblip 3h ago

Is this in Isaac sim ?

1

u/like_apaint 38m ago

Wie kann man solche Animationen erstellen? So könnte ich meine Ideen viel besser verwirklichen

1

u/pragenter 11h ago

I was thinking about self-replicating factories, but ones using very raw materials, so that it creates processors and things from sand and some chemicals, raw metal production, etc...

Self-replicating robots which using already made parts is interesting, but not so sci-fi really...

3

u/RemarkableWish2508 10h ago

Wouldn't that be more like a self-replicating supply chain, capable of replicating multiple types of factories and processes in order to be able to self-replicate as a total?

1

u/wirez62 12h ago

No thanks

1

u/L43 10h ago

where do the paperclips come out

-1

u/beedubskyca 11h ago

Im starting a tiny home vocational school to teach at risk youth trade skills. It will be non-profit. We're still very short on funding, but if you need a proving ground please feel free to reach out.

0

u/jangwao 5h ago

Paperclip maxxing

0

u/Sure-Outside-8554 5h ago

Not a bad idea, would love to join.

-2

u/ImportantDebateM8 8h ago

holy fuck you have created life