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Assemble an Ikea chair, no swearing involved

April 19, 2018.

Denso arms.

Denso arms. © Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

There are two kinds of people: those who love putting together Ikea furniture and derive a sense of pride and satisfaction from it, and those who absolutely hate it and find it a stressful, unnecessarily challenging experience. Now, thanks to Singaporean robotics researchers, we can add a third type: robots, who are very patient and don’t think (yet). As a result, you’ll need two robotic arms to assemble a Stefan pine chair ($25) in about twenty minutes, half of which is spent identifying the various pieces. It’s reassuring to know that robots, too, sometimes encounter setbacks. In the second video, it’s almost enough to make you take pity on them: the arm that drops one of those annoying little wooden pegs seems almost despondent.

IEEE Spectrum, “Robots continue attempting to master Ikea furniture assembly.”