A professor of computer science over at Stanford is fed up with assembling some of Ikea’s not-so-easy-to-assemble products and is working on a solution. Andrew Ng plans to bring together a team of 30 computer scientists in order to build a robot that will be able to perform generalized tasks such as assembling an unassembled Ikea Billy Bookcase out of the box. Dubbed the “Billy Buster”, preliminary estimates are that this project will take 3-10 years.
Ng’s plans sound good, but Buster’s nemesis may turn out to be the missing parts and vague instructions and “fiendish plans” that are sometimes associated with Ikea flat-pack products.
Ultimate test for a robot: build an Ikea bookcase – The Sunday Times, July 23, 2006
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