myCobot 6-Axis Collaborative Robot

Posted: July 01, 2021

In: Gear ➠ Gadgets

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Purchase Details

$599

from Elephant Robotics »

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Elephant Robotics declares its myCobot "the world's smallest and lightest six-axis collaborative robot," and it kind of makes me wonder: 1) how'd they do that?!; and 2) how many small, light 6-axis collaborative robots are out there competing for this title? Do they all look like a cross between the white PVC pipes installed in my mama's plumbing system and the eyeball that came out of Kim Basinger's purse in My Stepmother is an Alien?

Though (somewhat) affordable to the average consumer, aside from its 850-gram weight, 350mm arm length, and multi-jointed range of motion, I'm not sure what the myCobot has to offer that would be truly useful to them. Yes, it can hold up your phone or table during video calls, and maybe rotate the screen between speakers if it's a work conference, but there are plenty of low-tech gadgets that will do the same.

In the kitchen, you can put my Cobot to work, uh, taking things out of the microwave and setting them on a plate. But only solid foods, nothing in a bowl or container, and probably nothing too heavy. So, like, dinner rolls? And by the time you set up myCobot by the microwave and "tell" it what to do, you could have done the same thing yourself 10 times over with little extra effort.

In your workshop, Elephant Robotics recommends using myCobot as a "third hand" to help hold and deliver tools. Eh, OK. I don't have a workshop, or any talent as a maker, so I don't know how useful a robot handing you hardware and wires and tubes of glue would be.

myCobot can also stack and place things like blocks and marbles into a maze, so I guess it could be a playmate for your kids. But you know every 10 minutes one of them would flip out that the other isn't sharing, or took something that wasn't theirs, or bit them. And then your robot "helper" would just end up being another member of your household you have to mediate and decide when to send to time out.

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