AutoSaw: Furniture Customized by Robots!

When you need furniture, you have a few choices: buy something off-the-shelf, build it yourself, or pay someone to do it for you. These options mean that what you get is either inexpensive in the case of mass manufactured pieces, but perhaps not quite right, or entirely custom. This can be expensive if you hire a carpenter, or potentially dangerous if you make it yourself.

The Robot Assisted Carpentry for Mass Customization research platform by a team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) presents another option: a user customizes furniture templates designed by experts, and robotic helpers cut out the needed parts to be assembled. The system then guides the user through assembly, producing a piece of furniture, or even something more substantial like a shed or deck exactly as the user wants it built.

CSAIL’s robotic system consists of a pair of Kuka youBots that lift beams and positions them on a chop saw, which then automatically cuts the wood. Circular pieces can be cut via a modified Roomba Create, which travels on top of the cutting surface — foam board in this case — turning traditional CNC machinery on its head. All of this is done without humans getting near moving blades, for a safe custom woodworking experience.

Be sure to check it out in action in the video below!

[h/t: The Verge]