Stretch at Promat 2023 | Boston Dynamics 

If you would have told me 10 years ago that an autonomous robot would be unloading trucks, I would have said "That's a stretch".

A lifetime ago, I was in a situation that brought me to check up on how work was being done in a loading/unloading facility like this. They were walking us down the conveyers and showing us what was being done. People were asking how many boxes you were supposed to pick up and put on a conveyor belt, how long and how frequent breaks were. Ignoring the details to the answers, I was focusing on the people working there. They were most of them covered in sweat, working in terrible lighting and very little air circulation inside truck trailers, looking miserable. But I will never forget two things: How empty their eyes looked, how drained their souls were. And how robotic they appeared. This type of job is not fit for a human, to do for hours, days and months to an end. I can’t imagine any sane human going there and working if they did not have a terribly pressing reason. Yet, they were there. One side of me applauds relieving humans from horrid work. The other side feels the dread of the people who had to do this job and what will happen to them when they no longer were needed.

Imagine the brainstorming sessions that happen at Boston Dynamics. It must feel amazing to be on ground zero designing the future.

so happy for you guys love to see it, you're one of the very few robotics companies i have confidence in

We here at FedEx already have an excellent unpacking system that is suitable especially for fragile and other sensitive packages. You see, our large container trucks have a tipping mechanism-similar to a dump truck-to raise one end of the container. The boxes practically unpack themselves into our patented _package pit._ From there, large bulldozers carefully move each box to its own sorting area where our specially trained RacCoon units inspect them and sort them. I don't know if I need to even mention this, but yes, this is hyperbole.

DHL, maybe they'll actually ship packages that should take a day or two at most in less than a month now.

This is such a great advancement. Can we see a video with more heterogeneity of case sizes / orientations?

Give us an Autonomous Humanoid robot already .That is All We want .😊

I like robotics. Because, this is future and doing easy our work.

apply this for efficent calculating & loading of containers too with minimum empty space left and finally focus on whole process of keeping that from truck to warehouse by using different models or something.

Many happy returns to the ester Sunday of boston dynamic

I wish my managers let me go that slow

Lovely!

Great, thanks for sharing share.

Do you have to characterize each box's contents beforehand, or can Stretch judge on-the-fly? I ask because it looks like Stretch picks up boxes from the top of the box. However if a box contains a very heavy object that said box cannot structurally support the weight of, its contents will spill out of the bottom of the box. Does stretch have a method to determine if the box's interior contents could damage the box's integrity, and alert human staff that it needs assistance?

Amazing, always, What you do is really the future, your work is perfect and consistent. I hope for continued progress.❤ (sudan 🔥)

Thanks!

10/10 for whoever decided to have the boxes be for Spot and Atlas!

This is too cool

Cool!

Wow, I need this for my many boxes that I have to move a very short distance!

THIS is what automation should be for - alleviating human labor

Curious why Stretch drops the boxes from about 6" height onto the conveyor rather than getting it closer before releasing. This isn't the first video of Stretch where I've observed this.

I need Stretch to increase the efficiency of me getting out of bed in the morning...

Pretty sick.

You guys are really STRETCHIng this one out!

This is evolution, people will be forced to switch to a different type of work, namely mental work, where machines cannot yet replace us, but they are also taught this. Everyone laughed at Jacque Fresco when he said that in the future we will not have to work physically and everything is going to this and at some point we will say lol remember how we ourselves loaded the goods bought in the supermarket, such things as loading furniture or household technology will be automated and will not require anything from people other than payment for goods and delivery. Only 30-80 years will pass and everything around us will be massively automated.

I have such a difficult time understanding how to set up washing machines these days - and I'm an electronics engineer! 🤣 I'm not sure if this means setting up Stretch is as easy as they want it to sound, but I love it!

Great technology ...

nice!

Yes!

Так это же круто ещё несколько лет и тысячи людей без работы 😅

i used to unload trucks sometimes random things will happen needing human intervention anyway

Cool

I'm just as impressed by the flexible, movable conveyer-belt.

In all your videos, I have seen stretch unload trucks onto a conveyor. I always assumed that it can also take items from a conveyor and put them into the truck. Is that a capability?

Perfect if every parcel is squarish with the same dimensions and weight.

Woah robots evolving 😮

nice! This will free up warehouse workers to do engineering desk jobs using chatgpt

Should have had the boxes going to an empty container with another Stretch loading up, then reverse back again when the boxes are done

You keep showing Stretch unloading and that is great, but can Stretch also load a container? I'm assuming yes, but just wanted to make sure.

it does well with empty boxes

How does it work when the boxes are not equally big and maybe they have been shaking around during transport and are therefore not evenly stacked ?

Yay for Boston Dynamics! (Hire me lol)

I'm just waiting for Boston Dynamics to become some kind of Faro Automated Solutions ...

- It should be mounted to the actual trucks for loading and unloading. And then it should have a conveyor setting or a pallet setting, depending on how you want to load and unload. Edit, it should be mounted on top of the back of the truck, and just the arm comes down to do all the moving.

Everone in an Amazon shipping unit liked this

cool.. now make a big version for cargo planes that fit along each side and the rollers fold down . Alternating left to right . Make getting choppers out much faster.

Three people to describe one product ? , maybe you can get stretch to help you streamline your presentations.

cool

Seems like it should be equally as good at picking up the boxes from the conveyor and loading the truck. But it's nuts that simple! Just imagine how different it would really have to be to do the exact same thing backwards. But think of the gains! When there's 100 trucks being unloaded, and 100 trucks being loaded, at the same time, with predicted forecasts replacing just in time inventory, and truly smart scheduling of your facilities facility, things are going to change.

it would be cool if you would unload from one container and immediately load it into another container along this conveyor line with exactly the same manipulator!

Thanks for sending doggo for mine searching to Ukraine . Thanks a lot 😊

let's see that puppy with 8 arms, cranked up to full speed

It will outstrech many workers.

Where I work, we have machines for heavy stuff but the machine takes like 10 minutes to get it out and set it up when I could just call another guy over and we can get it loaded in less than 30 seconds. We use machines as last resort. It's way too slow.

This product will put Boston Dynamics on the commercial compass. I predict exponential growth.

What is about top-full container? Can it reach top row?

Now, i would like to see it build a pallet

Was half expecting something kind of centaur looking that could field pick fruits and vegetables. How many arms can you actually fit onto a modified Spot? :p

Yeah it's cool, but when the boss needs that container empty, it's just not quick enough. Seeing 5 people emptying a container is something else.

I have done that job in the past and it's back breaking work the boxes are not a uniform size or shape some are fragile and some very heavy also most warehouses don't have a conveyor system people's backs are cheaper

Can stretch do loading as well? that would be incredible and a game changer.

what conference was this at? I wanna go

What if the boxes AINT neatly stacked or pushed in? or its not just boxes but other stuff? ye

❤❤❤👍👍👍

More type of boxes!

So much for human labor.

Lol I work in a warehouse and things very rarely work that smoothly. But hey maybe someday.

big dog 🐕❤

Can it also load?

What we are showing here is the end of human labor which we ALL knew was coming. What is bad is that we have no replacement labor for most low end workers going forward. If you thought the American dream was gone it is. If you thought the amount of homelessness was bad, its only just begun.

I unload trucks for a big box hardware store and they are a chaotic Mess, compared to the unloading environment shown with Stretch in the demo. I wonder what level of Chaos it will be able to handle in the real world....

Yeah maybe if the trucks are packed with the same robots. At Target the trucks where a mixture of pallets and flimsy boxs crammed to the ceiling. Quite a few times everything would spill out when opening the doors.

How do make the robot walk I want to make one it’s my dream so pleasssseee answer

BD best

Can when have a ride a AMP suits?

Ok this is all very interesting but what I want to know is- when will I get my robot butler

excellent, now lets see this at a walmart truck unloading

You had me until "operate a washing machine"

I wonder if stretch can lift really heavy boxes 🤔

I have been a huge fan since the days of Big Dog, and still am! But having spent most of my life in blue collar employment I do wonder if BD also takes part in efforts to mitigate the financial impact your innovations will inevitably have on some of the already lowest paid laborers.

ok but can it do backflips?

😮😮😮

We call our robotics by their name! 😂

I wonder if it works with boxes of varying sizes, stacked terribly because some people didn't grow up playing tetris.

How's it going MKBHD?

I see this robot unload but how did the boxes get in the truck? I feel this is only half a solution.

warehouse cool.....good purpose!

For the one time low price of a billion dollars! For one. And it breaks down a lot and requires a scientist to repair it. The future!!!

UPS doesn't like there boxes unloaded nicely and one by one though 😂😂😂

Good because we were tossing packages like boxes of pop tarts at UPS. Hate that job

Is it my imagination, or is the guy at 0:16 the guy that was harassing, Atlas with a hockey stick?

Last gentleman was the robot torturer, am I right?😅

Nice. Eliminate that monotonous menial labor

Does Stretch get a coffee break?

I think it a STRETCH this will catch on lol

These robots are still in their infancy, I have been working in different warehouses and it is very rare that you have an entire container full of the same-sized boxes orderly collected that could be easily removed by this robot. So for most of the containers, this robot is still useless.

Maybe for mail and parcels. But food and electronics is a waste of time unless it's unloaded in pallets

such boxes can be unloaded by one person, if their weight does not exceed 20 kg. If you calculate the timing of the upload by time, then a person will have a faster ... Here is the main question of saving money, but not time