It's been very interesting. There has, of course, been a distinct trend on assembly lines (hampered more by union caveats than capital investment) to use robotics to enhance production. This year, Foxconn (the producers of all things Apple) hired workers for their new Iphone factories, but also purchased 18,000 robots for their assembly lines to control the consistency of assembly quality.
In the robotics course I discovered I had underestimated how much robots and automation are being explored in practical and academic venues for use in commercial, industrial, and residential construction applications. In construction, I had thought that robotic applications were primarily leveraging modularity or extruded materials (for example, with brick laying or concrete), but the incorporation of 3D printing techniques was far more advanced as well. I also had to revise my thinking about the 'robot' per se, because once you extend the autonomy and remote sensing ideas in robotics, you are in the realm of drones and adaptable architecture.
In an article from 2011 - IEEE Spectrum Magazine showed practical robotic applications for construction. But, I couldn't help but notice that they seemed really interested in how robots could be 'artistic'.
Using brick laying and stacking to achieve curvilinear forms - IEEE Spectrum Magazine - 2011
Both IBTimes and Wired have had a number of articles that explored the use of 3D printers in construction. While we are still in the developmental stages of this new synthesis of construction techniques, it is progressing rapidly. In robotic applications, there are clear advantages in speed, quality control, and safety that have far reaching implications for building projects around the world. Machines already lay up whole sides of brick buildings at once, and the race is on for the first completely 3D printed building.
Using a gantry based 3D printer to build house walls through contour layering of concrete - IB Times - 2013
The practical application of a brick laying machine, more simple machine than robot - but this is only a first generation design - Construction Robotics Incorporated - 2014
At Harvard , Termes robots are making use of hive mind mentalities to complete tasks. These are termite-like robots that can climb, construct, and take away or add pieces as required. What is really interesting about these particular robots is that they are designed to operate semi-autonomously; give them a task like delivering materials to a second floor and they determine how to build a staircase to accomplish their goal.
Termes robots building stairs - Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - February 2014
As an extension of the range of thinking, Building Design and Construction Magazine has an online article that explore the continuum of robots and automation from the use of drones in surveying and robots in construction, to buildings with automated skins that adapt and change per solar gain and cooling requirements.
RMIT University Design Hub - Melbourne Australia - Adapatible outer skin with literally thousands of PVC lens designed to block, capture, or reflect light and vent heat - BDC 2014
To come full circle or full spiral I would like to present examples from an Inhabitat article on a robotic 3D printer sprayer that makes uses of local source materials to produce lovely tracery-like 3D sculptures and structures, as well as a Wired article showing a similar robotic printer that extrudes wire to make all manner of forms.
Robotic 3D Sprayer and Playground beach sculpture in Spain - Inhabitat - 2013
MX3D printer from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia - a robotic extrusion printer that prints at about 3 meters per hour - the wire frame sofa on the left is shown in plan view. Wired Magazine 2014
This is just a taste of what is possible with robotics, 3D printing, and automated technology. For some more rarefied examples, I highly recommend the MIT Matter Lab showcase of Robotic Applications and 3D tools, the Harvard School of Engineering noted above, as well as simply searching 'Construction Robots' and '3D Printing' in Google. There are new and surprising examples almost every day that are continuously opening up interesting architectural design possibilities for me.
