jashmota

6 ms·

1.
by jashmota 1y ago
These are really really interesting thoughts around the remote teleop interface. A few things you mentioned have been on my mind. Teleop UX is underdeveloped and its affects is underestimated, and it could turn out to be a huge thing for us
2.
by jashmota 1y ago
I completely agree. If you have worked in the industry, I would like to talk to you and get your feedback on what I might be missing on my understanding in requirements in safety layers. Would be great if we can chat on email: contact at us
3.
by jashmota 1y ago
This is a great idea - I would dig into this. I disagree on AI not winning here. Support crew mostly work on eliminating blindspots for operator. Yes you can eliminate blindspots with cameras and a 7inch TFT screen, but those are small,
4.
by jashmota 1y ago
I totally agree, what I meant was if we only do CANbus retrofit, we would really limit ourselves in how compatible we are. So we have to focus on doing the right kind of retrofit really well. CANbus retrofit is easier and we've done
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by jashmota 1y ago
You've touched one of my favorite things to think about. I think about this a lot. There will always be people who enjoy fully analog cars/planes/watches over alternatives. I think that doesn't define the whole market. H
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by jashmota 1y ago
I agree - the dumping and digging itself (where you move boom, arm, bucket much more than swing/tracks) should be manual. But swinging to the truck and back to pit (pure swinging motion to center around these areas of interest) do not
7.
by jashmota 1y ago
1. We're OEM/machine-agnostic 2. Full compatibility with any existing model and not just specific recent models
8.
by jashmota 1y ago
I think swinging (which is about 40% of dig and dump workflow by time spent) should not be manual. That's lowest levels of autonomy which requires roughly centering to the pit/truck which we have already achieved. Hence operator o
9.
by jashmota 1y ago
I'd like to add that this was done in partnership with Frodobots.ai ( https://frodobots.ai ) and BitRobot.ai ( https://bitrobot.ai ). They are working on a great mission statement and were amazing partners!
10.
by jashmota 1y ago
I definitely agree with you - recreating the scene in teleop is challenging. In excavators, however, it does make it better. An excavator has huge blindspots on the right (due to arm), to the back and sometime near the bucket. Hence the wor
11.
by jashmota 1y ago
I can relate to how you felt. Even though I developed this myself, when I saw it running remotely with no one sitting inside for the first time, it felt magical and weird. This is going to save lives and look magical and that's too muc
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by jashmota 1y ago
The way I think about this - we should not have multi screens. Human field of vision is 60 degrees for central and about 120 degrees binocular. The bucket of the excavator is way narrower than this which means actual task doesn't requi
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by jashmota 1y ago
I would love to explore that - could you help make this happen (I'm guessing you know him)?
14.
by jashmota 1y ago
Mining has had autonomous haulage (and to some extent excavation) for some years. They have been very tightly coupled to the individual machines, models and the quarry site. Construction excavation workflows tend to be different and more va
15.
by jashmota 1y ago
Haha yes - luckily we don't get this outside SF. We call it flywheel because our mission is to solve data flywheel problem in robotics. related, this cool photo: https://x.com/jash_mota/status/1969635994220839
16.
by jashmota 1y ago
I might be less experienced than you - I've operated upto 38 tons on maximum 15 degrees incline. I wasn't moving tracks a lot when I did that. Would like to hear what scenarios you'be been in and how would you describe your e
17.
by jashmota 1y ago
Interestingly, we had some people try out VR teleop: https://x.com/Scobleizer/status/1970245161306464667 https://x.com/jash_mota/status/1969091992140304703 I think force feedback is key
18.
by jashmota 1y ago
That's indeed what we're trying to test to the extreme - to see how far we could go with just vision. We haven't done heavy excavation workflows yet, but we have some early success with some excavation workflows with just vis
19.
by jashmota 1y ago
Thanks! Yes we're testing both CAN spoofing and retrofits. CAN spoofing really limits compatibility to a few machines/brands. Would love to get in touch with you: my email is contact ai useflywheel dot ai
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by jashmota 1y ago
We're indeed streaming the audio and have haptic feedback. My hypothesis is the seat vibration isn't as helpful. It's sub optimal and operators would be far more productive without it. We would do a paper when we have enough
21.
by jashmota 1y ago
You're right! This is exactly why we like to do mechanical actuation - we are able to achieve bilateral telepresence, which essentially gives the torque (haptic) feedback over the internet! So on small excavators, you can absolutely fe
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by jashmota 1y ago
Thanks! Let's chat: contact @ useflywheel dot ai
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by jashmota 1y ago
It's far cheaper than millions! We're making something equipment owners want :) Let's chat? My email is contact at useflywheel dot ai
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by jashmota 1y ago
You're spot on! The experienced operators are quite skilled at moving these machines. The number of operators who could do this work are decreasing and it's also pretty dangerous which explains the reduction of new people joining
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by jashmota 1y ago
We have some autonomous safety layers (comprised of object/human detection like you mentioned and others) even for remote teleop. But we haven't deployed autonomy on real sites yet. We still have some work to do before we can reli
26.
by jashmota 1y ago
It is possible. One good thing about our retrofit is it works on any hydraulic equipment, and not just excavators, although we are focussed on excavators for now. We are able to retrofit any hydraulic machinery because we actuate the joysti
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by jashmota 1y ago
Thanks! We enjoyed a lot while iterating the hardware and looking at hours of excavator data (mostly done by Mahimana).
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Launch HN: Flywheel (YC S25) – Waymo for Excavators
103 points by jashmota 1y ago|78 comments
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Debate: Is Scaling Enough to Deploy General Purpose Robots, at CoRL 2023 [video](youtube.com)
2 points by jashmota 3y ago|0 comments
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What Happened to the Future(foundersfund.com)
2 points by jashmota 4y ago|0 comments

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