Robot Partner 2.0 shuffles objects around the table so you don't have to

This is Robot Partner 2.0 by Slovenian artist Stefan Doepner. Recently exhibited at the 2008 ARS Electronica Festival, Robot Partner is billed as a robotic "living table installation." The table can clumsily shuffle objects around itself using an undisclosed technology (magnets, perhaps?) and is intended to showcase the "absurdity" of "service-automation." We're not entirely sure what that means, but you can see for yourself after the break.

[Via Make]

[KA @ Sep 16th 2008 1:18PM]

Why?

[Fragmit @ Sep 16th 2008 1:22PM]

That's absurd!
*Monacle pops out*

[konshuss @ Sep 16th 2008 1:21PM]

i'll pick one up as soon as it doesn't look like the world's busiest 1970s phone switchboard.

[funboy @ Sep 16th 2008 2:18PM]

You don't pick this up. This picks you up.

...

And the reason for this is that in Soviet Russia, AAAAH IT STARTED DRAGGING AGAINNIniaew

[Don Corleone @ Sep 16th 2008 1:23PM]

In the future, people will be moved across sidewalks using this technology.

[Mile @ Sep 16th 2008 1:25PM]

And here I am walking with my own legs! >mad

[konshuss @ Sep 16th 2008 1:25PM]

'Hey honey, can you pass me the piece of paper on the table there... Yeah I know I'm 6 inches away from you.'

'Coming right up. I don't even have to touch it, because I'm an obese lazy oaf!'

I'd kind of like to smash this thing with a wii fit.

[Jeff @ Sep 16th 2008 1:25PM]

magnets wouldn't move anything except a ferous metal

[frank @ Sep 16th 2008 1:36PM]

Unless it's a babe-magnet, ha ha.

[Joostow @ Sep 16th 2008 1:40PM]

that's why doctors advocate a diet rich in iron.

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 16th 2008 1:25PM]

One useful application would be... help me out here...

[Patriks7 @ Sep 16th 2008 1:27PM]

I can see this being used for some kind of a Battleship game or something like that :p

[Marcus @ Sep 16th 2008 1:32PM]

Haha one cool thing would be to just put all the plates, glasses, forks and knives on the kitchen table, press a button, and VOILA, your table is laid out for you!

Seriously, never gonna see that happen :)

[Ladderless @ Sep 16th 2008 1:35PM]

Perhaps in manufacturing? It might be helful to have an instantly configurable way to move products around without touching thm?
What about in warehouses?

Remember - It was done by an artist. There's a whole lot of "art" out there that defies useful application.... Besides draing the wallets of supporters.

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 16th 2008 2:18PM]

Where this would currently make sense is in art; where "making sense" would render your art boring and useless.

[Salim @ Sep 16th 2008 2:45PM]

Have a blind person over and really mess with his head!

[Dan @ Sep 16th 2008 6:28PM]

You might want to check this project out, it works with a similar technology of moving objects with magnets. However it provides a scenario for human-computer interaction: http://www.jamespatten.com/pico/

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 16th 2008 6:30PM]

Yes, I've seen this before. Makes physical objects on its surface serve as tactile controls for whatever application. Not quite the same though...

[Phraust @ Sep 16th 2008 1:27PM]

a nifty idea, i guess. kinda reminds me of this one i had a while back ( http://blog.phraust.com/2005/08/something-you-can-touch.html ), but in the beginning to prototype stage (without the cool force feedback). Ah well, in this age of convenience, what seems absurdly lazy now will be common place convenience in 10 years. I for one welcome our smart robo-servant overloards.

[7on @ Sep 16th 2008 1:41PM]

Ah, good thing to know. Was wondering "Gee, I wish there were a new artist I could loath." Congrats Stefan Doepner.

[xcise @ Sep 16th 2008 1:46PM]

great desk if you want to shuffle your laptop's harddisk.

[gfar @ Sep 16th 2008 1:54PM]

Fail.
Homer Simpson did the same thing by kicking the table, and it was way more impressive than this.

[DoomGaZer @ Sep 16th 2008 2:00PM]

Absurd? How about someone trying to serve food to their family (or a server at a restaurant) and there isn't an immediate place to set a hot tray on the table? Are they just going to stand there and let it burn their hands or maybe they can shout at the table "make a hole" and then a space appears.

[johnzilla @ Sep 16th 2008 4:09PM]

Absurd is said waitperson blithely walking all the way from the kitchen to the table with this super-hot dish and only realizing upon arrival that it is burning their hands.

[Eddie @ Sep 16th 2008 2:03PM]

So where did they get the stupid thing...oh, I know the haunted house at Walt Disney World.

[TokenFag @ Sep 16th 2008 2:09PM]

likely solenoids... as they energize, the "post" pops up in sequences to move objects.

highly sexual in nature, of course.

[Kasiro @ Sep 16th 2008 3:07PM]

So useful...

[CaptSaltyJack @ Sep 16th 2008 2:25PM]

THANK GOD. I've grown so weary of shuffling objects around the table. I thought this day would never come.

[Mic2000 @ Sep 16th 2008 2:26PM]

I hear a sort of Half life 2 sound on the background

[Denver_80203 @ Sep 16th 2008 2:57PM]

finally i can play checkers without picking up those damn checker chips

[Joe @ Sep 16th 2008 4:53PM]

I don't think I'll be using that to move hot coffee toward me soon.

[phanbouy @ Sep 16th 2008 5:58PM]

yeah then YOU'D be a hot cup of Joe

[Murfinator @ Sep 16th 2008 10:21PM]

So, what happens when I'm working on the table with my laptop and it formats my hard drive? Do I get my money back?

[qwertyblue @ Sep 17th 2008 7:37AM]

You should have seen the beta version, it was just a guy under a table dragging a magnet back and forth!

[Kip HT @ Sep 18th 2008 1:30AM]

BUT CAN IT PLAY DOOM?!?!?!?!?!?

[Alex @ Sep 17th 2008 4:12PM]

It seems to me he has a line of servos on two borders that pull string/wire to make the dowels spin on the grid. The spinning action is what causes the table's contents to move. Not the most precise (or practical) application, but I guess you can't expect much from it.