Hackaday: While robots enter other industries in herds, the assembly of garments has long been a tedious, human privilege. Now, for the first time, a robot has sewn an entire, wearable piece of garment. Sewbo, an industrial robot programmed to tackle the tricky task, assembles clothes and makes it look easy.
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The idea of fully automated garment manufacturing both really scares me and really worries me. It doesn't seem that far off, and I can see many fast-fashion companies taking advantage of this in ways that would wreck the planet even more than they already are. Fast fashion is one of the top causes of pollution on Earth, because of the disposable nature of the immensely cheap, poorly crafted garments. The positive I can see in this, however, is the possibility of cutting out the human rights issues that exist in fast-fashion manufacturing. With robots at work, many fast-fashion tragedies that have come to light, such as the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed over 1000 people in Bangladesh (a factory that companies such as Forever 21 and H&M commissioned), could possibly be avoided in the future with less human labor at stake. This definitely doesn't excuse the fact that these companies are supporting these terrible working conditions, and it would be rather sad that instead of simply improving the conditions of their workers they would swap in a horde of robots to do their dirty work, however, I can see it being a possibility.
This robot is so amazing. It’s not like it’s a multi step machine that’s more like a converter belt assembly, this robot can pick up all the individual pieces and it knows the order and placement to do to make the garment. And injecting the fabric with the stiffener s a pretty cool way to get around the floppiness of fabric, though it probably only works on certain fabrics. However, no matter how cool this robot is, there isn’t a good “home” use for it- basically it’s going to be picked up and used by mass-producing factories, because otherwise why would you go through the trouble of writing all the code and prepping the material if you only needed one thing. And it being used in factories scares me because while factory workers, especially in third world countries, are by no means being treated well or paid enough, if this gets enough traction there won’t be any need at all for those factories to hire real people. If this happens hopefully those workers can find better jobs, but if the best you can get is a factory job, there’s really no where else for you to go. It’s a scary prospect.
While I am amazed at the idea and the progress I found the finished product less than dazzling. The article centers so much around the sewing machine, while it just seems to be a re vamped version of the already existing assembly line technology. I think the material in the fabric that temporarily stiffens it has much more possibility than the machine. The extra fee of the materials to stiffen the fabric has no place in the commercial fashion market. Compared to cheap oversees labor a robot that requires any more than a human would to create clothing would be quickly pushed out of the competitive market. It would be better suited advertised the stiffening material to the fashion and costuming world as an advanced technique to achieve certain types of designs. While the machine is a start to something great I feel like the article title was a little misleading.
New developments such as this one are always a little terrifying and exciting at the same time. I have noticed that the advent of mass production and technology such as this has chipped away over time at the population of craftsmen in the world. Ever since the industrial revolution, when textiles first became easily available for cheap, we have wanted more and more materials for cheap. This continues today where we want nice furniture, food,and government services without paying the full price for these items. This robot, to me, represents the future of textiles. A robot can work longer hours, more efficiently, and in worse conditions than any human ever could. Why should a large company employ people from 3rd world countries when they could replace those people with a machine? And, as Claire pointed out, this robot is just a standard assembly bot, so it's relatively inexpensive and easy to program. I do not worry about this innovation bleeding into theater due to the diverse skills and ability to adapt that a costume shop calls for. However, I do worry about the future of the fashion and textiles industry.
Although the robot's physical abilities and programming certainly blew my mind, I definitely felt looking at the finished product that it was more science than clothing. Though the stiffening of the fabric is incredibly inventive and resourceful, it does take away the ability of the body constructing the garment (be that body human or machine) to work with the fabric's natural strengths and characteristics for the benefit of the finished product. One thing a person has which a machine does not are instincts. The ability to sense and respond to the tendencies of fabric, patterns, and the human body is invaluable in the construction of clothing, as it turns inconsistencies into art. Grain and weave and weight and content all cease to matter when fabric is not longer its adaptable self. The ability of the human mind and hand to manipulate a garment's construction is already somewhat impeded in an assembly line setting. A machine simply eliminates that ability. Though I find a development like this incredible and the ingenuity behind it inspiring, that t-shirt is far more of an invention than it is couture. Let's call this step one, and see where it takes us.
I would like to first say that I’m very impressed by the sewing robot, and very much interested into discovering different ways to combine costumes with engineering and other STEM projects. However, having a robot that can sew and possibly replace human hand doesn’t sit very well with me. The reason is because I’m very much visual and tactile person, so doing stuff like sewing, whether by hand or machine, or just general crafts really excites me and I love doing it. So having a robot do what I can do, and it could do it way better than me (it isn’t hard), kind of frightens me. Once again, there is a possibility that people could be a too large of a marginal error to keep them to sew and work on fabric, and since the robot can do a way better job with less of the money in the long run, wouldn’t it make sense for them to replace humans with machines. Thus people’s job are on the line, because of the chance they could be replaced. I don’t want that. I also kinda just don’t like the idea of having a robot completely take over something that a person could also do for the reason that it is more ‘efficient’ (aka lazy) (Half-Joking). I believe that even if it isn’t “efficient” it is good for something things to be done the hard and tedious without giving up on it completely.
Recently I was listening to a story on NPR that was talking exactly about the manufacturing dilemma inherent to sewing fabric with robots. The story on NPR focused on a team that was taking a slightly different approach in allowing robots to manipulate fabric. Instead of adding any environmentally problematic chemicals to the fabric they focused on the 'why' behind the robotic shortcomings in relation to handling fabric. In my understanding of their ultimate solution they were seeking to integrate high speed cameras into the process and using them to capture the threads per inch and how rapidly they were moving through the machine. This data would be manipulated and combined with other data relating to the tension of the fabric and thus provide the robot with a very thorough understanding of what the fabric was doing so it could be manipulated accordingly.
A huge concern I have with the process mentioned in this article is the addition of polymers into the fabric. Not only could the creation of these polymers be toxic to the earth but they also create a vast amount of waste just so robots can sew clothes. To me, the benefit does not outweigh the need.
What a wonderful and terrifying start to a new age of sewing. we have automated embroidery machines but nothing on this level yet. It will be interesting to see the machines take on more complicated tasks like setting a shoulder or sewing an inseam. This revolution will certainly be interesting on a mass scale of production but i think it will still be some time before tailors are out of a job.
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