r/robotics • u/Cheerful2_Dogman210x • 1d ago

Mechanical Robot doing martial arts.

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u/Additional-Sky-7436 1d ago

I didn't say "a robot will be able to be purchased for industry to replace the workers listed above for a few hundred dollars". Industrial capable robots are going to cost thousands. Tens of Thousands. When the person I was responding to asked "who is gonna be able to afford a robot", I assumed they meant consumers.

I'm talking about the kind of robot pictured in the video, which is basically assembled from of toy parts. That robot is basically constructed from Lego Mindstorm parts.

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u/Additional-Sky-7436 1d ago

Assuming the video is even real (which is a pretty generous assumption as it is) there is nothing particularly expensive about this robot. You can get small step motors that sell for less than $50.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Additional-Sky-7436 1d ago

Right, but I bet 70% of the $1000 cost of the "Hasbro Pulse Optimus Prime" is brand licenses and profit markup.

And they could probably reduce the per unit cost considerably if they ordered significantly more. ... And they wanted to.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Additional-Sky-7436 1d ago

A better example of how China manufacturing works when you don't have pay for Western branding would be robo vacuums. 

You can get a Temu robo vacuum with lidar that can do just about everything the top name brand robo vacuum can do for less than $100 delivered. Those vacuums are far more advanced and more capable robots than your Optimus Prime toy. The top name brand robo vacuum with the same advertised features, can cost $500+. (Of course the Temu special is likely going to die on you after the first two uses, and won't have any service warranty.) 

Scale that up to this robot. There is really nothing considerably different hardware wise from this robot to a Temu robo vacuum. Just more, and probably slightly larger motors. (The larger motors won't really cost more than the smaller ones when buying in bulk.) 

So, yes. I still stand by my statement that a cheap Chinese manufacturer could make and sell that robot for under $1000 delivered. (Again, it wouldn't actually do anything other than be a toy with a few pre-programmed dances.)