Gradually we come closer to the small flying robot beings from the movie "Batteries Not Included" (those could build and repair everything). The difference between wasps and those drones is that insects also have legs to stabilize their position and possibly even fix flaws in the applied material, so a precise 3D printer drone swarm likely should have additional small arms to be used in a similar way.

Same principle as "When you have a hammer, everything is a nail !". But is it ???

Concrete without rebar... sounds like it should last 2 or 3 years

If this push thru.. a lot of people will lose their job

You claim 3d printing in construction is environmentally safe, efficient, and is a business with alot of money. No more scaffoldings , no more wastage, no more heavy equipment, NO MORE HUMANS. I really don't get it why these people are so amazed in machines replacing humans.. ai, human like robots, drones and now these... Evolution means extinction of the latter

A concentrated solar array at the site would fix that, just make the initial costs slightly bigger. Still not as much as the extra costs from both time and heavy machinery

Probably energy expenditure flying those is not a significant cost all expenses accounted. But the crane system would be simpler, faster and less prone to failures. Drones would be maybe better for hard to reach places and fine details.

@@cython5086 No it doesn't. Cranes are still more energy efficient.

@@cython5086 if we're gonna set up a solar array for the drones then you have to consider doing that for the cranes as well. Either way the cranes would be cheaper and more energy efficient. this is definitely not efficient or enviromentaly more friendly but it does have use cases for MaRs BuIlDiNgS :-/

That would require extra solar panel production which is also energy intensive. But a solution in the long run for sure. But won't help much short term.

LOL

savage

Doesn't Hexagon mean '6 sides'? The bees seem better at the job at present.

@@pcka12 that was exactly the joke part

@@DeathSugar so 'a pentagon'.

You won't because it's dumb.

@@jvon3885 - Not the word I'd have used, but I wouldn't argue against it. KZfaq influencers have always loved to make big dramatic predictions about new technologies. They rarely come true.

brilliant! i'm all down for that one. huge delts 3D printer have been dome before, and (unlike this bogus) it's a really promising technology.

But drones are cool and trendy.

Already I thought of several ideas that SOMETHING anchored to something else that would supply SOME rigidity to allow the same drone to work and not interfere. LOTS of different ways this could be attempted like the one you say. AND you could have a persistent electric power line compared to small limited batteries. That is a must-have for construction. Just think how many recharge cycles you might run in a day at say 20 min per run, and maintain cases of batteries.

@@mrwayneright Yep, and the lines running power to the unit can also supply feed-stock. Definitely way more real-world potential than a swarm of inefficient flying blender-bombs. Using tethers and/or suspension cabling might at least allow for cranes that aren't so heavy-duty, reducing some of the wastage mentioned.

Yes

Was thinking the same thing but I thought construction stopped during weather conditions because holding anything against wind is difficult no? Like, I can't imagine swinging steel bars suspended by a crane wire with higher up winds is business as usual

​@@bforbiggy chances are the crane can continue to work on higher wind than a drone can.

Yeah drones are just inefficient, even if tethered with a pipe for the concrete it is still inefficient. What they currently have for 3D printing building works much better but if they want to go down the route of collaborative robots then ground based robots are best. Something with either legs or wheels that can go round and build up the walls would be better and wouldn't need stabilisation or to worry about the wind.

@@conorstewart2214 This might sound unintuitive, but OP's 3rd point about wind is actually the easiest one to manage than his other two points - there aren't that many ways we can get around weight and energy consumption after all. Wind, however, is easier. Now, I'm no civil or robotics engineer, but I'd imagine having an independent wind sensor, something you can put around the site, at some distance away, to "forewarn" the drones, would be rather easy. The sensors can then wirelessly communicate with the drones, after which the drones can prepare - adjust their positions, how much to "lean" in a certain direction, and for how long. Like I said, I'm not an expert in these fields, but if even a layman like me can think of something like what I just described, then I'm sure these engineers can figure it out. The weight and power issues are the bigger problems.

Classic KZfaq comment... "You're wrong.""

Bullshit. Falls while working at height are the leading cause of workplace fatalities. Everybody and their mother drive a car to work. More people die in traffic accident? Wow. Mind-blowing. This is not in defense of concrete printing, drones or otherwise. It's a terrible way to construct anything. Printed concrete has simply not been proven to remain stable at any scale, let alone high-rise construction.

Because you don't have to feed, water, and wash a plastic robot. A camera gimbal can't feel pain when the operator drops it, nor does it get anxious when strapped to the side of an aircraft.

i think he's saying they need to be studying chicken necks with ai algos lol......right?

it didn't take God a million years to make a chicken. 🙂

No, it took roughly 800 million years of animal evolution to get us with a modern chicken, with a tiny chunk of that being human guided evolution

Yea for large construction projects the cranes would probably be worth the hassle for this reason, but for smaller jobs or emergency applications I could imagine these having their uses

Sure, but more energy for something that's more flexible and 2 or 3 times faster than the gantry style 3d printing, which is already significantly faster than regular building, is worth the efficiency cost. Electricity is cheap and only going to get cheaper.

@@ZirothTech What is a "large" project? For a house-sized project, you could likely design a gantry printer that breaks down in about six major components for transport and can be deployed in less than two hours. Once the gantry is up, it can operate for however long you need it to, no charging or reloading breaks. Though printing speed is ultimately limited by how fast previous layers set hard enough to safely support the next layer.

I could see a combination of the two. A Crane lifts the material close to the use point, then the drones zip about applying it over a short distance. You're still making savings as there is a reduction in labour@@ZirothTech

If the efficiency of the drones and solar cells reaches a certain point, they wouldn't even need to charge, just pick up material and get to work. The efficiency comparison breaks down once we get past energy scarcity.

May as well use a crane if all you're doing is lifting panels.

In places where cranes can't be cost effectively located, drones might be another option. In the end it comes down to cost and practicality of course.

​@@CommentaryTeam1 in places where you can't get cranes you likely aren't building anything large and chances are you can fit a small crane or forklift in rather than drones.

@@conorstewart2214 Is see it more about process automation and where it's heading. In the future once this drone assisted construction concept evolves sufficiently, I have little doubt it could find a niche in rapid modular construction. Something I'm not sure a crane would be well adapted to. It would hinge on the design structure being modular and optimised for construction via drones, using pre-fabricated components, simply lifted into place by drones at a fairly rapid pace. In the end, it could just come down to cost effectiveness. Modular construction would be easier for drones to adapt to. One off designs less so.

piqued your interest. stirred or aroused, not maxed out. it got your attention. common mistake but you use the word correctly. and you make a lot of good points, I agree, these are pretty interesting problems to sort out

Structurally Insulated Panels or SIPs.

@@slozenger9000Pre-fab?

it just ain't gonna work. lol

The ingenuity helicopter is absolutely impressive, but there will probably never be much atmospheric flight on Mars.

I.e. steering a swarm of 3D-printing string puppet robots!

@@AerialTheShamen: *flying* 3D-printing string puppet robots!

The drone still needs to lift the weight of the cord or pipe and a pipe filled with concrete is heavy. A robot that crawls or walks along the top of the wall would be better.

@@conorstewart2214 good call

They don't. These drones and most 3D printed houses are nothing but concrete, no metal reinforcement and all electrical or plumbing work needs done after the structure of the house is built. They also likely need to put extra walls up inside or you will have a bumpy, plain concrete wall with all the wiring and plumbing exposed.

I was actually surprised but the trump international hotel in chicago is 1389 ft of concrete, no rebar. but definitely not built with flimsy drones

Yeah, this could definitely be part of a solid toolkit. I wouldn't bank on it as an all-in-one thing for large projects anytime soon. This and small robots for tight electrical work.

The hammer is still in use because ''the less moving parts, the less issues there can be'' i'm pretty sure this would be a nightmare operation to deal with. The number of failed print possible is huge and we are talking structural integrity.

@@sebtessier5023 Unless you leverage AI to manage the drones, detect and correct issues in real time. You can drive a single nail into the wrong location and still build a perfectly fine house.

@@Neuralatrophy wouldn't it be absolue atrocious tu try an manually control a swarm of hundreds of drone manually? I am pretty sure we would need an AI. Still have to clean hundreds of nuzzle after, find replace batteries frequently, tiny repairs for every thing and that is without mentionning the noise for the Neighbors. I am pretty sure it would get banned in large city

that could be arranged

both aspects should be covered equally

There's a whole neighborhood going up in Texas that is being 3D printed. Call it what you want, it's more than a concept.

Yeah drones aren't suitable for this really. Ground based robots or gantries would work much more efficiently. Maybe even something that crawls along the wall and poops out concrete behind itself would work. Also it is "I beams" not "eye beams", they are named because of their shape, it is the shape of a capital i, similarly they can also be called "H beams" again because of the shape.

Yeah this will be better used for other things than building the walls. The walls are built on the ground so why not use ground based robots? Drones may be good for spraying insulation or paint though.

Exactly. And putting up the walls and roof of a truss-based metal building can be done quickly by a small crew.

There is no reason gantries can't be used in emergencies or in space travel too. Drones aren't very efficient. One thing you will likely lack in space travel or in emergencies on Earth is power so you want an efficient solution.

@conorstewart2214 I agree, but the biggest issue with gantrys for emergencies is that you dont know the situation you're going into. In unideal conditions, you're gonna need a huge gantry. For space travel, the energy efficiency of gantrys makes them a more permanent solution, but you want to reduce weight as much as possible when you launch a rocket, so in some situations drones might be a good idea. I could see drones being designed to prepare (or repair) hard to reach infrastructure, like the equipment that produces filament for a gantry, the gantry itself, or the higher points on lander craft. Though on low atmosphere bodies though drones are basically usless, same for overly windy ones.