These are excavators
But this one is different.
No one is operating it.
As our world continues to grow and evolve,
so do our infrastructure needs.
- Bridges are gonna fall apart.
Dams are gonna break.
Levies are gonna be overwhelmed,
and the reason that we're not doing
that kind of work right now
is it's just too expensive.
But if we don't take care of them,
then it's going to cost
even more in the long run.
- This is Noah Ready-Campbell.
His company, Built Robotics,
is dedicated to finding a solution.
- You know, those kinds of
massive infrastructural projects,
they need to happen over
the next 10, 20 years.
I think robots are gonna
play a really big role.
- If they succeed, it
would fundamentally change
the way our world is built.
But how?
(upbeat music)
- If you were a
construction worker in 1900
and you looked at how people build today,
it's very similar actually.
So, the industry's just,
it`s been kind of static.
- At the start of the twentieth century,
hydraulics made their
way into construction.
In the 1960s, this
technology became mainstream.
What used to powered by cables and steam
now had the power and
precision of hydraulics.
But since then, not much has changed.
- We really believe that
what's gonna happen next
is that you're not
gonna see the innovation
on the mechanical side,
and instead you're gonna start to see it
on the software side.
You don't necessarily
need to have a person
who's in there moving every single lever.
Here's an opportunity to
really make a big difference
in an industry neglected or ignored
by the technology
industry for a long time.
(piano beat)
- Silicon Valley hasn't
really made in roads
in the construction industry,
but Noah has history there.
(soothing music)
I started Built, because my
dad worked in construction
when I was a kid and every
summer I worked for him.
When I was in high school, back in 2016,
I was like, Dad, look, there's this idea.
I really want to tell you about it.
I think I know what I wanna
do for my next company.
I wanna automate heavy equipment
and he's like, "Look, if
you really wanna do this,
before you automate equipment,
you better learn how to operate it first."
So, next morning, I woke up,
I called the local John Deere dealer
and I rented an excavator.
I told my mom that for Mother's Day,
I was gonna dig her a pond.
By the end of it,
I could start kind of
get the gears turning,
thinking about how I could write software
to allow the machine
to do some of the work
that I was doing.
Six months later, we had our
first prototype up and running.
- Four years later,
Built has done a dozen
projects on two continents.
The way they've done
this is pretty clever.
They actually don't make
any construction equipment.
- So, what we develop
is an AI guidance system
that you can install on
commercially available
off the shelf equipment
from CAT, Deere, on to
any of the major manufacturers.
Then we write the software
that goes inside that system
and interfaces with the machine,
so that it's able to
navigate around the job site
and it's using stuff like
GPS, cameras, lidar radar
in order to observe its environment.
And then robotic equipment operators
are able to load in plans or blueprints
and then tell the machine
exactly what they want to do.
You set it up, you hit go,
when you come back at the end of the day,
the machine is done.
(soothing music)
- You might be wondering,
isn't this just going to
take away construction jobs?
- Robots don't automate
jobs, they automate tasks.
We really think of the robot
as basically a force multiplier
for those operators on the jobsite.
So, you know they don't have to be doing
those sort of mundane, simple tasks,
which are kind of a waste of somebody
with that level of skill
and instead they can focus
on the higher touch higher value work.
Imagine a future where one operator
is managing two, five or
even 10 of these machines.
Job sites that used to sit idle,
could now have robots
working around the clock.
A job that would have taken
months before now takes weeks.
How fast would we be able
to build the next Empire State Building
or Panama Canal?
- At the end of the day, I'm a nerd,
like I love the technology,
I think technology is actually
an incredible force for good.
And the long term vision
is not just excavators,
or not just earth moving.
It's working on a variety
of different tasks
throughout the whole construction stack.
(upbeat music)
It's already a massive industry,
but there's actually a whole
lot more that could be done.
We could have much better roads.
We don't have the same kind of
traffic. Building wind farms,
solar farms, water pipelines,
more energy efficient buildings.
I think there`s tremendous appetite
where people want to shape the world.
If we can figure out ways to
let the humans focus on the
design, the aesthetics, the art,
that goes along with building
and then let machines do
the more repetitive mundane,
we can actually shape our environment
in a way that could have a
radical impact on everything.
It's not just a matter of what we want,
it's a matter of what is necessary.
- Thanks for watching.
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