Melanie Espinal photo
Pablo Cruz, 8, Vinny LaRocca and Lucas Nichols, 13, navigating the Axis touchscreen remote interface.
Vinny LaRoca pressed buttons on a remote, and to the delight of second-grader Pablo Cruz, a $37,000 robotic arm got the message: It picked up a small plastic bottle of Irish moss.
The demonstration took place Tuesday night at MakeHaven, the maker space on Chapel Street. Pablo and 35 other adults and kids gathered for a look at the latest in robotics courtesy of a company involved in the field, Axis New England.
The children used the robot’s arm to pick up the bottle and move it back and forth, as well as draw squares with an Expo Marker and even attempted to pick up a stamp.
The robotic arm was pronged onto a wooden table with rotating “joints.” LaRocca, an automation engineer at Axis, compared the movement of the machine to the movement of his own arm, by bending his elbow and twisting his hand to show the motions the arm can mimic.
Staff member Lior Trestman invited Axis New England to MakeHaven, a maker space on State Street, to bring the robot arm and show people what changes are being made to traditional industrial robots.
Automation engineer Vinny LaRocca of Axis New England demonstrating Universal Robots robotic arm at MakeHaven, Tuesday May 28.
Axis is an automation technology center that has remote locations in Ellington, Connecticut, as well as Danvers, Mass.
Trestman said he asked Axis to come down to MakeHaven after seeing a presentation at EasTec, a manufacturing technology conference in Massachusetts. Among the manufacturing equipment there were uncollaborative machines, meaning they are not meant to have a point of contact with people and are often caged, and then there were some like Universal Robots arm, which interested him.
“I think uncollaborative [machines] are obviously unappealing to us,” Trestman said, noting the hands on experience of MakeHaven. which features several programs and equipment available for its monthly members from cooking, beer brewing, woodwork equipment, to complex cyber security tools and even an ink printing press.
Robotic arm made by a 3D printer currently in the works.
He also invited Axis to speak about their robotic arms because one member at MakeHaven is attempting to make his own robotic arm, a timely processes that includes individually making each piece using a 3D printer which layers material onto each other until it forms the shape of a digital model imputed into the printer’s software.
Despite its power to complete repetitive tasks, the machine is built to stop in its tracks when bumped by a person, and even backing up if it senses that it is blocking a person in. The machine is programmed to have 150 of newtons of force, which is less than the 250 newtons typical of car manufacturing robots, according to LaRocca.
“If you get hit by one of those it’ll kill you,” he said. Unlike traditional models, these machines do not need to be caged and away from humans.
LaRocca demonstrated this by bringing some people in the audience to interrupt the machines task. Some volunteers included elementary and high school aged children.
Cheshire resident Aline Nichols brought her robot enthusiast son, Lucas, 13, and daughter Victoria, 12. The Nichols family has surrounded themselves in STEM world, driving to events like these around the state and even traveling internationally.
“I drive anywhere and everywhere,” she said, later showing pictures of a robotic dog made by Victoria, which could produce growling noises.
Her son attends the CREC Academy of Science and Innovation in New Britain, where he learns about robot building, and competes in the international VEX Robotics Competition. Lucas, his robot and classmates plan to compete against other schools in the January 2020 competition which will be in China.
Although Lucas is fascinated with coding and “building robots from nothing,” he said more than anything he loves having the opportunity to teach even younger people about robots.
Lucas Nichols checking to see how the robotic arms’ hand moves while attempting to make it grab a stamp.
Ultimately, he said that is what he sees himself doing, “making sure they’re aware of what will be going on in the future because robotics are all about the future.”
His talent for instructing was apparent while working with Cruz. The 8 year old received pointers from both Lucas and LaRocca on using the robotic arms’ interface.
The interface was viewable from a tablet-like touch screen remote, which comes along with the arm and control box. Children, who made up part of the around 35 people in attendance, took turns passing around the remote, using the arm to draw boxes with a marker.
LaRocca mentioned the machines’ purpose is to fulfill many changing uses of companies, an alternative to having to reprogram traditional robots or buy new equipment.
Despite its many uses LaRocca said there are obvious limitations. He noted instances when a robot couldn’t possibly do certain tasks however menial if there are elements of human skill.
“Humans are really good at thinking,” he said. “A robot isn’t.”
One example was a military personnel shining belt buckles. After a longtime buckle shiner retired from the army, Axis was asked to experiment using a machine to replace the task. After experimenting, Axis found the robot could not produce results up to par with the retiree.
“We’re not replacing anybody’s job,” LaRocca said. Instead, Axis hopes to help companies that can’t find anybody willing to do mundane repetitive tasks.
LaRocca’s company helps businesses and other companies visualize how an automated robot would work for their needs, looking at which “menial” task they hope to avoid by having a robot do them. One of the companies Axis works with is Universal Robots, a robotic company that manufactures in Denmark but is based in the US.
The robotic arm presented was one of there their three models, which range in price from $27,000 to $47,000.
LaRocca said he presents robotic arms to kids for two reasons: One, he doesn’t mind spending his time with future engineers. And two, he hopes that they will see companies like his as a solution to issues their future selves may have, like job shortages.
He also noted kids seem to pick-up the interface and the robot a lot quicker than some of the business persons he shows it to.
LaRocca, who typically presents the robots to heads of engineering departments or president of companies, said he wasn’t expecting as big of a crowd as he got: “It was a good change of pace.”
Trestman added that the robot allows for a cool opportunity to interact with technology even if he doesn’t see an immediate use at MakeHaven.
Even so, Trestman said with its easy interface, “The fact that a young kid can confidently make it do whatever they want is amazing.”
He said this time around MakeHaven wanted to invite the public to “come see what the future looks like.”
