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Comment by thdrdt | Hacker News Reader

Thinking about car painting robots it's clearly about cost.

You can program a car painting robot in some hours. This will be way cheaper than a robot that is aware of the car and knows how it should move to perform the best paint job.

Another example is your washing machine. It would be nice to have a washing robot that would sort your clothes and wash them. But it is way cheaper to sort clothes yourself. So a cloth sorting problem might be an open problem but is indeed a nice-to-have.

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I wouldn’t say clothes-sorting is just a nice-to-have - imagine you could get a third machine that sat next to your washer and dryer, and it folded clothes for you. I bet a lot of people would buy one, if it cost a similar amount to a washer or dryer. Lots of money in that hypothetical product. The problem is that our technology isn’t good enough to build it.

A robot that is aware of the car is long term better because you don't have to spend hours programming for each car and paint scheme. However the problem is hard enough that right now we spend hours because it works and industrial automation has enough advantages that it is worth doing anyway.

That robot may be more valuable in a company that makes custom items like toys or signage. For car manufacturing, they are making hundreds of thousands of cars a year of the same exact shape, so a few hours if setup isn't to bad!

A few setup for cars adds up, which is why cars are a single color. If the robot had some artistic sense it could put stripes on the car that artfully flows with the lines of the car. No reason it can't be done today, but it isn't because that is more hours.

I believe most car parts are paint everything and don't worry about over spray which brings costs down. That only works if you have a single color.

Another open problem: taking machines apart for recycling.

This is a problem I've been passively thinking about and would LOVE to tackle full time.

Any VCs out there have piles of cash they want throw my way?

> Any VCs out there have piles of cash they want throw my way?

I think maybe you need to refine your slide deck a little

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