Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Home | Dictionary | Timeline | New

Dish Washing Robot Arm

This is an interesting prototype. The hand has enough control to pick up glasses and the device is mounted on a rail that extends the length of the counter.

(Panasonic dish washing robot)

The device is controlled by a camera mounted over the arm. Take a look at this short video of the dish washing robot arm in action.

I'm in favor of any robots designed to perform tasks like dishwashing, even though they aren't full humanoid bots like ARMAR the kitchen robot, for example.

(ARMAR robot for the kitchen)

Fans of Robert Heinlein may recall the plans that he had for Flexible Frank, one of the robots from his 1956 novel The Door Into Summer, which had a Thorsen Memory Tube

...you need cause Flexible Frank to clear the table and scrape the dishes and load them into the dishwasher only once, and from then on he could cope with any dirty dishes he ever encountered.

Better still, he could have an electronically duplicated Thorsen tube stuck into his head and could handle dirty dishes the first time he ever encountered them . . - and never break a dish.

Update: 30-May-2016: Fans of Ray Bradbury's chilling 1950's tale There Will Come Soft Rains recall this robotic solution to the dishwashing problem. End update.

I'm ready for practical robots, and I don't care if they're humanoid or not.

Via PC World from Dvice.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/19/2009)

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )

Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")

Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.' - Aldo Giunta, 1957

Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said. - Pournelle and Niven, 1981.

Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.

Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'

	Web TechNovelgy.com

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'

Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'

Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'

Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'

Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'

Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.

'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'

Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'

Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'

DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'

Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'

Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'

Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'

Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'

Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'

'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories