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Build it Up, Break it Down
Could USC's robot be the key to constructing buildings on the moon or maybe even Mars? The April issue of Discover Magazine looks at the robotic machine built by Engineering professor, Behrokh Khoshnevis. The $30,000 robot can mix and lay concrete on its own, building a tier of the wall every 2 minutes and 14 seconds. NASA is already taking a look at the machine to see if it could do the same process with space rocks and, with a mixture of other machines, perhaps be set on an alien surface and go about building complete structures. This could also be used closer to home to save the lives and limbs of construction workers on Earth (although, with robotic construction teams maybe that removes the need for construction workers in the numbers we need them now and that presents a whole host of other problems, right?)
Meanwhile, the rest of LA was at the very cool SRL show this weekend where the blew a lot of stuff up. The pictures are quite spectacular.
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