Watch a Hypnotizing Machine Sort River Rocks by Age

[tzury]

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/watch-a-hypnotizing-machine-sort-river-rocks-by-age?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

[bsder]

Awww, this is an art installation. That disappoints me. I was hoping that there was a good scientific reason why somebody had to do this ...

ObRobot: ABB Robotics pickers are always good robotics porn ...

https://youtu.be/wg8YYuLLoM0?t=77

[kpil → bsder]

It's awesome, that's what it is. It's a nice illustration. You could have a student do it, but it would not be as fun.

[dingo_bat → bsder]

> ABB PickMaster 3.2

Best name ever.

[vinchuco]

Request to remove "hypnotizing" from the title.

[munificent]

This really begs for a time lapse.

[sp332]

There's a lot more information on the actual video page. https://vimeo.com/167126696

[thomk]

I'm curious about the sorting algorithm. The article states that rocks are actually sorted twice. I wonder how so.

[slackingoff2017 → thomk]

My guess is the first pass places every rock into a known location and the second one moves them to their correct spot. Assuming the machine starts out without knowing the total number of rocks this would make sense. You can't put any rocks into the right spot until you've seen all of them.

[BugsJustFindMe → slackingoff2017]

Surely a machine that can see rocks can see all the rocks without moving them. It might need to weigh them to measure density, but that still doesn't explain double sorting.

[detaro → thomk]

The description on the Vimeo video says "Intermediate, pre-sorted patterns are formed first, to make space for the final, ordered alignment of stones, defined by type and age."

https://vimeo.com/167126696