Hello, I'm just here to gripe about "tennis court sized walls". Besides being a stupid measurement (1 tennis court equals 260.87 m2), a tennis court is a horizontal thing, and is wholly unsuitable for giving the approximate size of a vertical thing.
I can easily imagine the area of a tennis court, far moreso than the size given (in square meters, no less! <s> I live in a country that uses Freedom Units! </s>).
Then, in my head, I can imagine what this area would look like as a wall.
It doesn't seem like they are filled with anything other than the "special construction adhesive" that's applied on the sides of the cinder blocks. You can see it dripping in the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhRb2AF92I&t=78s
something tells me that if the contestants that used the bonding cement had taken a mortar approach, they would have still finished in half the time as the other two :)
I'm aware that it's a promotional video for a product, but in my own experience as a former masonry worker, it is still faster. And a layperson who is bad at gapping mortar correctly can get it right if the first blocks are level
Why don't bricklayers use this magical substance? If there's nothing to even out the courses, then unless your bricks have absolutely perfect dimensions, it's going to go all wonky quite quickly.
Building glue is not magical and it's widely used, at least in western Europe. Glue is rapidly replacing mortar (just not for foundation and facade stone). Also, it dries a lot quicker than 45 minutes. A builder doesn't have to wait at all to add additional layers. And at the end of the workday, you just drop you glue gun, no need for lengthy cleanup of everything used to make mortar.
If the "glue" you're referring to is what I think I've seen, it's still much thicker and filling than what you can see in the video below (where you can still see light through the gaps)
> And probably a harder problem than just placing bricks down.
Actually, the unreasonably long boom arm is bouncing around significantly, yet the bricks are being place precisely independent of the boom movement. There's some nontrivial PID going on in that brick placement. Plus planning where to place the brick. Optical, lidar? This is impressive imo.
So it needs special adhesive, special bricks, special maintenance (Whats the lifespan on that internal saw if you have a lot of corners?) and it's only for the inner walls? What is the value proposition here?
Bricklaying is a skilled job and key to the building's stability and durability... so remind me to stay way from buildings next time I visit central Europe...
Key to the building’s stability and durability are the steel reinforced cement corners and support columns. The bricks in between, especially for internal walls, are just dividers. You could build them out of paper and the building would be just fine.
Afaik you need the reinforced concrete part of construction for even small family homes for earthquake safety. Bricks don’t do well under sheering forces.
As I wrote, this is a skilled job and they are apparently in very short supply here in the UK, where most houses are made entirely of bricks and even many taller buildings use a lot of them... so they can make a good living, indeed. Maybe not as high as you suggest but pretty good.
Actually, many skilled trades in the UK can make 50-60k a year, bearing in mind that these are technical qualifications, no university involved (whereas the system pushes everyone towards uni)
Speaking for Romania here (if you go more "Central" they have smaller earthquakes and it might be different), the houses are supported by pretty big reinforced concrete columns, and the floors/ceilings are all reinforced concrete. You can use other materials other than brick, like aerated concrete bricks, the main role is thermal/sound/fire insulation, there is no strength value assigned to the walls, only to the corners+columns. e.g. https://img3.imonet.ro/XV08/V0801LH4N7O/casa-la-rosu-in-oras...
Romania used to have brick-only houses, but after a major earthquake in 1977 that is not allowed anymore.
Bricklaying is relatively easy, and it's a quick part of the building process, it only takes a couple of days for a regular house. I was looking at the robot, and an experienced bricklayer can lay the bricks just as fast, if you can keep the bricks and mortar coming.
Here in the UK I believe the full training to become a qualified bricklayer takes 2-3 years.
So "relatively easy" has to depends on the quality and specifics of the end result... for instance, here in the UK, most houses are 100% bricks and visible ones on the outside, and the result is flawless (definitely not 'easy' to achieve) and lasts for literally centuries.
> Here in the UK I believe the full training to become a qualified bricklayer takes 2-3 years.
This has nothing to do with how difficult it is to learn how to lay bricks (insert ali g joke?) but more to do with capitalism. Paying apprentices £20-40 a day is a lot cheaper, shock horror, than paying a "qualified" brickie 3-600 a day.
Anecdotal I know, but family in the trades. I spent ~18 months* whilst doing my degree on the roofs, side by side with brickies on projects that range from single site, domestic, to 1500+ dwellings and commercial sites. A good 85-95% of them don't even have a GCSE. It's, still, a very much family business - at least in the UK. Connections will get you everywhere - most were pulling in 60-150k.
The main thing I learnt from the brickies I worked with, never mess with them. Even if you're in the right. They may look unhealthy, but jesus christ they're more than capable of throwing you a not insignificant distance. Going up a ladder all day, every day, with 24 bricks on your shoulder when your labor doesn't turn up will turn you into a beast - albeit one covered in fat due to poor diet.
*Weekends and 4-6 hours a day when the schedule allowed it. Site carpenters are just as bad. Most are bent as hell, very few take pride in their work. The housing stock in England is shit for a reason and it's entirely historic. Take a look at the city and guilds guides. Sparkies are the best and...that's not saying best.
Edit: Just watched the promo video, these are - special - breeze blocks. With a veneer? Stuck together with at best glue? This is going to be a hyperlocalised response to a labor shortage and wouldn't hold up to building standards outside Australia.
> The housing stock in England is shit for a reason and it's entirely historic.
To an extent that's always been true I'll agree but it has gotten better and worse at times, when we where looking at houses I specifically gave more weight to stuff built in the 70's/80's over anything after that or before that, relatively new (for our housing stock) but built at a time when pride in work was still a thing.
As a result the build quality on my house is excellent (and I used to be a sparkie so I know a lot of the trades tricks).
The new builds we looked at had much better energy efficiency but god when you go look in the loft/anywhere that wasn't immediately visible was the quality dire plus tiny in comparison, 90sq/m2 for the same as we paid for a 4 bed 128 sq/m2.
The UK doesn't have the earthquakes that Romania does, bricks houses just don't last there. So they use thick bricks with many airholes, for insulation, because winters are harsher, and then cover the bricks with mortar/stucco. They still line them up right, but obviously there is no need for them to be as nice as in the UK.
As a northern European I was always confused when in action movies people fight each other and throw one another through walls. I later realised this is a thing because American homes are built like garbage.
If you have to stay away from buildings in Central Europe I'd recommend not visiting at all, you'll miss all our beautiful European cities built for humans. You'll have a better time on your 8 lane highways back home.
I am in the UK, you know, red bricks everywhere, that's why I know that the description I replied to means that those brick walls are indeed garbage if they are built by 'nonprofessionals' because this IS a very skilled job (and I was also being facetious). It seems I have touched a nerve, though... oh well, nevermind.
It's called light timber frame construction and drywall cladding. The framing is 100mm x 50mm (dressed, about 87mm x 34mm) timber, the drywall is 122mm thick gypsum (hydrated calcium sulfate) lined with paper on both sides of the frame.
It partitions spaces perfectly cromulently, particularly if soundproofing material is placed in the dead space between the two sheaths of drywall.
Very much less labor intensive than stone or brick walls. And of course much lighter if it falls on you, in an earthquake or because a truck drives into your building or a military drone delivers an exciting present.
This is coming to the UK. I'm seeing more and more new houses built that way here with "composite cladding" on the outside, or sometimes still brickwalls on the ground floor but that do not seem to be load bearing.
It seems hard to think that in 20 years all those issues won't be better (it will be able to do other types of walls, windows, integrate plumbing, etc.)
The "special bricks/adhesive" also doesnt seem to be a huge deal at scale. Every type of construction has its own speciality equipment (there are drills just for drywall, just for concrete, just for glass etc.)
Interesting, but I think that modern factory built panels - which are already in common use for commercial buildings - are the future. They regularly put foam insulation between two layers of cement so they are well insulated (or at least can be), and because they are built in a factory they can better control quality. A worksite can put panels up a lot faster once they get going.
> They regularly put foam insulation between two layers of cement so they are well insulated (or at least can be), and because they are built in a factory they can better control quality.
Not always possible: some locations need counter-measures against termites by building code, and insulated concrete forms (ICFs) have no/fewer options in that regard:
Further, on shorter schedules, it may be difficult schedule a large concrete pour on short notice, so a team of guys and a portable mixer can lay block on an ad hoc basis on short notice. Blocks (cinder or other) also also often used for (small(er)-scale) retaining walls. The Essential Craftsmen channel has a video titled "Block vs Concrete" (where they used both for different aspects of the same project):
I watched the video about the termites... not impressed. Obviously people in the area are using ICFs (which are a little different from prefabricated panels anyway)- and still getting building department approvals... so a call to the local building office to ask would be the smart approach rather than just to assume that it can't be done. Just because one company couldn't do it doesn't mean that no companies can.
Based on the facts presented in these post, I would be hesitant to rely on ICF where terminates are a peril. Concrete (formed or block) is simply a superior building material when considering resistance to termites.
I agree, if the goal is cost and speed, prefab is the way to go.
I also think a major limitation here is the boom itself, there's plenty of bricklaying done in fairly confined spaces. Between two buildings for example. Here one could just lower panels into a confined space with a crane.
I am building a house by hand. Laying CMU one brick at a time is one of the most practical ways to build foundation and walls by yourself with no heavy machinery and limited hauling equipment especially in remote areas. Prefab you quickly run into massive expenses for delivery and heavy equipment rental.
It seems that way to me as well. There are interesting challenges involving electrical and plumbing systems -- say, around connecting in-wall sections with in-floor sections. I imagine these can be overcome within the limits of existing building codes.
The only thing I disagree with is that factory built equals better quality control. Lots of factory built things lack quality. Furthermore this brick laying machine might have high precision ability it’s not fair to say it won’t without seeing it in action.
Prefab concrete was popular in some areas of western Europe too, but fell out of fashion for housing probably partly because of its association with drab, dull public housing projects.
It fell out of fashion because the size of rooms in those flats was limited by the size of the biggest panel, which was small indeed. Also, those panels conduct vibrations very effectively.
Except Russia seems to have moved on from that. The Soviet panel buildings have a bad reputation in general. Most new apartment buildings I've seen are built out of monolithic concrete (is this the right English name for this technique?)
The wiki article isn't exhaustive btw — there exist very common 9-story panel buildings as well. Also taller ones but those are rarer and usually tower-like (as opposed to repeating sections with separate entrances).
I don't know if it's the word you're looking for, but one word you hear people use for this type of prefab stressed concrete construction (especially evoking the Soviet era) is Panelák.
This pretty much sums it up in a darkly hilarious way:
> The panel buildings called khrushchevka are found in great numbers all over the former Soviet Union. They were originally considered to be temporary housing until the housing shortage could be alleviated by mature Communism, which would not have any shortages. Khrushchev predicted the achievement of Communism in 20 years (by the 1980s). Later, Leonid Brezhnev promised each family an apartment "with a separate room for each person plus one room extra", but many people continue to live in khrushchevkas today.
Pretty much. Many homes in the uk even meet the quality of the era - flatulate in your upstairs bedroom, it can be heard opposite end of the house downstairs. Some have the audacity to claim east europe has lower quality housing while living in worse quality builds themselves, albeit modern looking and well maintained.
Whenever anyone pitches an on-site robot to do something, and important question to ask yourself is "can centralized factory robots already do this?"
Pizza is a great example. We know how to get robots to make pizza (sorry, but DiGornio is not hand-made), we just long-ago realized that you need a pretty large volume of output to make robotics economical.
Until we get AI to the level where the robot drives itself to the site and collects/prepares materials on its own, centralized factory robots will always be the answer.
its actually a hard problem: the massive boom that's required to provide reach is inherently quite unstable, not in the mm or cm but we're talking decimeters here. some of the core tech of FBR dating back ~15 yrs addresses this kind of dynamic stabilization. FBR is impressive and they've built decent an IP.
For anyone unaware the significance of the name "Handrian":
> Hadrian's Wall (Latin: Vallum Hadriani), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Aelium in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian.[1] Running from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west of what is now northern England, it was a stone wall with large ditches in front of it and behind it that crossed the whole width of the island. Soldiers were garrisoned along the line of the wall in large forts, smaller milecastles, and intervening turrets.[2] In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.[3]
This reminded me how as a kid for about a decade I used the CDROM burning software Nero Burning ROM [0] without any idea that it was a reference to the Roman emperor Nero [1] and the Great Fire of Rome [2] until my mom saw me using it and educated me.
Also it's German software, and Rome in German is "Rom". So it's even more literal.
The original icon was a lot clearer (Colosseum + Flame)
EDIT: I guess it really should be called "Burning WORM" (Write Once Read Many). That could have been a name for a rival software. A bit icky though, I suppose - and possible malware connotations.
In the UK it is in the news a lot at the moment because at a famous location on the wall, 'sycamore gap', somebody cut the famous sycamore tree down for no apparent reason.
I found this intriguing. The guy is probably in a lot of trouble, but Sycamore is an invasive non native species. In other areas people are paid to cut them down!
It's interesting to see the different forays into building process automation. I've come across a couple other brick-laying solutions, and a few 3D-printing-inspired ones (using concrete as the extruded medium). I do think the approach that is most likely to succeed would be pre-fab components assembled on-site.
Some of the immediate challenges that the demo videos didn't show include the placement of headers / spanning gaps, and keeping the courses even / level. It's interesting they introduce some custom adhesive; I'm guessing because mortar delivery in that setup was prohibitively expensive.
Interesting choice with the flat cinderblocks -- one would think for a method like this, they'd choose some type of an interlocking block, to make alignment easier and increase contact surface for the adhesive. I'd compromise on the saw in that case -- lose the dimensional granularity (eg have the wall dimensions be specified in 6" increments) but get rid of a complex component in the pipeline.
These folks must have a solid business plan to have gotten this far - I guess the value proposition is lower cost than traditional building methods, coupled with 24/7 builds?
It’s a solution to no problem. Outer walls were never a problem. The insulation and cabling/piping is. Paying for 3 days for insanely complex robot with a crew will not be cheaper than having 2 weeks a crew of 2 guys with a forklift/small crane laying the bricks.
Bricklaying is backbreaking skilled, and often dangerous work -- and we're in a skilled labor shortage. This doesn't solve every construction problem but this seems much more useful than the 3D wall-printers since block buildings are going up constantly and there's no new tech in the building that would require certification, just in the placement/setting of blocks.
This appears to be done without mortar, on a level surface, inside a warehouse.
I understand the allure, but 300 blocks an hour is the equivalent of 2 guys with some skill, and they'd be able to do it with mortar and rebar in an outdoor setting.
Many of these technologies will only ever be profitable in a small handful of Western nations - building-block log homes, this type of masonry, foam formed concrete.
Advances in building technology are about balancing pre-site prep with on-site flexibility. Stick construction is an advancement over timber construction partially because timbers are expensive and partially because it's much more flexible (and you can use smaller trees, and a bunch of other things). We use cinder blocks for construction now instead of bricks because it's a lot easier to transport large blocks in the automobile age, etc.
A good advancement in building construction reduces labor cost with either new materials, new systems, or more pre-site prep. A good example of this would be SIPs, pre-site cutting of lumber (think an Ikea house), and integrated sheathing systems like the ZIP system. Replacing very flexible human beings with expensive equipment (that needs a human being to watch it anyway) tends to not save all that much money.
As others noted, this is working outside and with some sort of adhesive (about which one might want to know lots more), and as for a level surface, well, that's generally going to be the case in almost all cases anyways. That said this robot doesn't do rebar, and that's a big deal.
That picture didn't look like any building site I've ever seen. Edit: same with the video Where are the piles of stuff everywhere? And the power leads? And the saw tables and tools and ladders and trestles and scaffolding and...
> As for the final result, well, FBR's first outdoor test build as shown in the video below might result in some harsh words from an employer – take a look around the 1:08 mark, where the lighting shows some clear inaccuracies in brick placement. But given that this was literally the first testing and calibration run for the next-gen robot, we'll assume that's not likely to remain a problem for long.
That's a bit too fawning for my taste. A more level-headed analysis might be "it might improve over time". NewAtlas tends to spooge over any new tech. That's their bread and butter.
I wonder how this compares with just 3D printing in concrete, like Icon. It seems a little bit like putting a round peg into a square hole to have a robot fastidiously recreate a building technique designed around humans, whereas doing it in a way optimized for robots can be easier and more flexible. Kinda how roombas don't vacuum like a human.
I remember I bought a roomba (first model years ago), and it didn't vacuum at all. it was basically for picking up crumbs from (some of the) the kitchen floor.
In terms of lower cost of fast robotic construction I like the Italian company doing giant 3d prints of houses, if the soil is right they use local soil and leave a hole for a pond next to the house.
I am not a expert on any relevant level, but aren't you supposed to put cement between the bricks? A little blow from the wind will knock down those walls in not time.
112 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadThen, in my head, I can imagine what this area would look like as a wall.
A tennis court sized wall made of bricks is just a large meta-brick.
Whew! Cheers! That was gonna bug me all day (but I don't like to quip on HN, y'know?)
I doubt that's what the robot is using, but it is a faster way to build block walls by hand. https://youtu.be/p_ZopnZ94Uc?feature=shared
Ultimately these are the "bones" of the wall to which you afix stucco or house wrap + furring strips + siding on the outside.
Inside would be stucco (if in warm weather climate) or furring + insulation + wall board (if in cold weather climate).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGmhLtsK2ZQ
Notably absent from this demo. And probably a harder problem than just placing bricks down.
Only for indoor bricks, wienerberger Porotherm https://www.wienerberger.co.uk/tips-and-advice/blockwork/how...
Very cost effective.
Actually, the unreasonably long boom arm is bouncing around significantly, yet the bricks are being place precisely independent of the boom movement. There's some nontrivial PID going on in that brick placement. Plus planning where to place the brick. Optical, lidar? This is impressive imo.
Ceilings, roof, plumbing, electrical wiring, facade are way more trouble.
Glue is getting popular anyway.
Key to the building’s stability and durability are the steel reinforced cement corners and support columns. The bricks in between, especially for internal walls, are just dividers. You could build them out of paper and the building would be just fine.
Afaik you need the reinforced concrete part of construction for even small family homes for earthquake safety. Bricks don’t do well under sheering forces.
Actually, many skilled trades in the UK can make 50-60k a year, bearing in mind that these are technical qualifications, no university involved (whereas the system pushes everyone towards uni)
Romania used to have brick-only houses, but after a major earthquake in 1977 that is not allowed anymore.
Bricklaying is relatively easy, and it's a quick part of the building process, it only takes a couple of days for a regular house. I was looking at the robot, and an experienced bricklayer can lay the bricks just as fast, if you can keep the bricks and mortar coming.
So "relatively easy" has to depends on the quality and specifics of the end result... for instance, here in the UK, most houses are 100% bricks and visible ones on the outside, and the result is flawless (definitely not 'easy' to achieve) and lasts for literally centuries.
This has nothing to do with how difficult it is to learn how to lay bricks (insert ali g joke?) but more to do with capitalism. Paying apprentices £20-40 a day is a lot cheaper, shock horror, than paying a "qualified" brickie 3-600 a day.
Anecdotal I know, but family in the trades. I spent ~18 months* whilst doing my degree on the roofs, side by side with brickies on projects that range from single site, domestic, to 1500+ dwellings and commercial sites. A good 85-95% of them don't even have a GCSE. It's, still, a very much family business - at least in the UK. Connections will get you everywhere - most were pulling in 60-150k.
The main thing I learnt from the brickies I worked with, never mess with them. Even if you're in the right. They may look unhealthy, but jesus christ they're more than capable of throwing you a not insignificant distance. Going up a ladder all day, every day, with 24 bricks on your shoulder when your labor doesn't turn up will turn you into a beast - albeit one covered in fat due to poor diet.
*Weekends and 4-6 hours a day when the schedule allowed it. Site carpenters are just as bad. Most are bent as hell, very few take pride in their work. The housing stock in England is shit for a reason and it's entirely historic. Take a look at the city and guilds guides. Sparkies are the best and...that's not saying best.
Edit: Just watched the promo video, these are - special - breeze blocks. With a veneer? Stuck together with at best glue? This is going to be a hyperlocalised response to a labor shortage and wouldn't hold up to building standards outside Australia.
To an extent that's always been true I'll agree but it has gotten better and worse at times, when we where looking at houses I specifically gave more weight to stuff built in the 70's/80's over anything after that or before that, relatively new (for our housing stock) but built at a time when pride in work was still a thing.
As a result the build quality on my house is excellent (and I used to be a sparkie so I know a lot of the trades tricks).
The new builds we looked at had much better energy efficiency but god when you go look in the loft/anywhere that wasn't immediately visible was the quality dire plus tiny in comparison, 90sq/m2 for the same as we paid for a 4 bed 128 sq/m2.
If you have to stay away from buildings in Central Europe I'd recommend not visiting at all, you'll miss all our beautiful European cities built for humans. You'll have a better time on your 8 lane highways back home.
It partitions spaces perfectly cromulently, particularly if soundproofing material is placed in the dead space between the two sheaths of drywall.
Very much less labor intensive than stone or brick walls. And of course much lighter if it falls on you, in an earthquake or because a truck drives into your building or a military drone delivers an exciting present.
The "special bricks/adhesive" also doesnt seem to be a huge deal at scale. Every type of construction has its own speciality equipment (there are drills just for drywall, just for concrete, just for glass etc.)
Masonry adhesives are common
> special bricks
Where does it say that? The specs just say "blocks up to 600mm x 400mm x 300mm."
> Whats the lifespan on that internal saw
The blade or the saw? According to the marketing it "allows for quick change out of parts"
Not always possible: some locations need counter-measures against termites by building code, and insulated concrete forms (ICFs) have no/fewer options in that regard:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxJkYAA5jTU
Further, on shorter schedules, it may be difficult schedule a large concrete pour on short notice, so a team of guys and a portable mixer can lay block on an ad hoc basis on short notice. Blocks (cinder or other) also also often used for (small(er)-scale) retaining walls. The Essential Craftsmen channel has a video titled "Block vs Concrete" (where they used both for different aspects of the same project):
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ld9sIbkEJA
https://www.nachi.org/icf-termite-inspection.htm
Based on the facts presented in these post, I would be hesitant to rely on ICF where terminates are a peril. Concrete (formed or block) is simply a superior building material when considering resistance to termites.
I also think a major limitation here is the boom itself, there's plenty of bricklaying done in fairly confined spaces. Between two buildings for example. Here one could just lower panels into a confined space with a crane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchevka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_panel_system-building
[] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19860910310NR_Rostoc...
The wiki article isn't exhaustive btw — there exist very common 9-story panel buildings as well. Also taller ones but those are rarer and usually tower-like (as opposed to repeating sections with separate entrances).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel%C3%A1k
> The panel buildings called khrushchevka are found in great numbers all over the former Soviet Union. They were originally considered to be temporary housing until the housing shortage could be alleviated by mature Communism, which would not have any shortages. Khrushchev predicted the achievement of Communism in 20 years (by the 1980s). Later, Leonid Brezhnev promised each family an apartment "with a separate room for each person plus one room extra", but many people continue to live in khrushchevkas today.
Pizza is a great example. We know how to get robots to make pizza (sorry, but DiGornio is not hand-made), we just long-ago realized that you need a pretty large volume of output to make robotics economical.
Until we get AI to the level where the robot drives itself to the site and collects/prepares materials on its own, centralized factory robots will always be the answer.
[1] https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Mark+Joseph+Pivac
> Hadrian's Wall (Latin: Vallum Hadriani), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Aelium in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian.[1] Running from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west of what is now northern England, it was a stone wall with large ditches in front of it and behind it that crossed the whole width of the island. Soldiers were garrisoned along the line of the wall in large forts, smaller milecastles, and intervening turrets.[2] In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.[3]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall
This reminded me how as a kid for about a decade I used the CDROM burning software Nero Burning ROM [0] without any idea that it was a reference to the Roman emperor Nero [1] and the Great Fire of Rome [2] until my mom saw me using it and educated me.
[0] https://www.nero.com/eng/products/nero-burning-rom/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome
The original icon was a lot clearer (Colosseum + Flame)
EDIT: I guess it really should be called "Burning WORM" (Write Once Read Many). That could have been a name for a rival software. A bit icky though, I suppose - and possible malware connotations.
I found this intriguing. The guy is probably in a lot of trouble, but Sycamore is an invasive non native species. In other areas people are paid to cut them down!
Some of the immediate challenges that the demo videos didn't show include the placement of headers / spanning gaps, and keeping the courses even / level. It's interesting they introduce some custom adhesive; I'm guessing because mortar delivery in that setup was prohibitively expensive.
Interesting choice with the flat cinderblocks -- one would think for a method like this, they'd choose some type of an interlocking block, to make alignment easier and increase contact surface for the adhesive. I'd compromise on the saw in that case -- lose the dimensional granularity (eg have the wall dimensions be specified in 6" increments) but get rid of a complex component in the pipeline.
These folks must have a solid business plan to have gotten this far - I guess the value proposition is lower cost than traditional building methods, coupled with 24/7 builds?
I understand the allure, but 300 blocks an hour is the equivalent of 2 guys with some skill, and they'd be able to do it with mortar and rebar in an outdoor setting.
Many of these technologies will only ever be profitable in a small handful of Western nations - building-block log homes, this type of masonry, foam formed concrete.
Advances in building technology are about balancing pre-site prep with on-site flexibility. Stick construction is an advancement over timber construction partially because timbers are expensive and partially because it's much more flexible (and you can use smaller trees, and a bunch of other things). We use cinder blocks for construction now instead of bricks because it's a lot easier to transport large blocks in the automobile age, etc.
A good advancement in building construction reduces labor cost with either new materials, new systems, or more pre-site prep. A good example of this would be SIPs, pre-site cutting of lumber (think an Ikea house), and integrated sheathing systems like the ZIP system. Replacing very flexible human beings with expensive equipment (that needs a human being to watch it anyway) tends to not save all that much money.
In case anyone was wondering. Why is it so difficult to just give the measurements instead of some vague size?
Nice lab demo.
That's a bit too fawning for my taste. A more level-headed analysis might be "it might improve over time". NewAtlas tends to spooge over any new tech. That's their bread and butter.
https://www.iconbuild.com
Kind of like how Icon forces 3D printing onto the problem when re-usable concrete forms have ben used to build concrete structures for decades?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37927990
and you can Crtl-F adhesive to find other comments.