Robots on the Jobsite Advancing Construction Work
A New York-based company is beta-testing robots that can lay bricks and may be coming to a jobsite near you. The semi-autonomous mason machine, or SAM, is being watched closely by construction and robotics professionals alike. “At a full sprint, SAM can lay bricks at speeds comparable to a mason,” says Scott Peters, vice president at Construction Robotics. “But there’s the issue of worker fatigue—they take breaks. So, in a day, a mason can do about 400 to 500 bricks. But now you can have the mason minding the machine, and it can do 1,400 to 1,500 bricks a day.” And while construction sites aren’t robot-friendly, engineers say their experiments are continuing as they try and bring automation to the industry.
