Dirty dishes? Dirty laundry? This robot does the dirty work
Open Droids Company Breakdown
“The most underreported story of the century”
What is the story? It’s about human-capable robots. No, they’re not humanoid robots, but robots capable of performing human-like tasks. But first, let’s take a step back to explore other once under-the-radar technologies.
In 1893, amidst a Chicago summer, neoclassical buildings lined Jackson Park, and electricity was on display—one of the first large showcases of electricity in the world as bulbs lit the park. Nikola Tesla roamed the fair as his AC system was in full force, but another inventor attended in a much more low-key fashion: Josephine Cochrane, the inventor of a little-known thing called the dishwasher. Josephine was a socialite often hosting copious amounts of dinner parties, which came with lots of dishes. The fine china dishes used needed handwashing, which presented another issue: chipping. Constant washing and chipping led Josephine to invent what we know today as the dishwasher. Today, the dishwasher is in over 89 million homes in America and saves households more than 230 hours of cleaning dishes annually.
So, what is the dishwasher of today? The washer? The dryer? The household item that will become so common that its importance and relevance won’t be recognized until that repair sign turns on? Open Droids is creating just that. As Tesla and Edison focused on electricity, Josephine tackled the dishwasher. And as companies build humanoids, Open Droids is tackling the problem right in front of many of us (literally)— your stack of dirty clothes, full trash bin, and other chores you’ve been ignoring. Open Droids is creating a robot for pick-and-drop operations. How is this done? Open Droids is built on a knowledge-based robotics framework, which merges vision-language models for object detection, navigation primitives for movement, and grasping primitives. The wheel-based robot known as R1D1 will slide through a home, dynamically shifting speed as needed. Now, why the wheels? In the engineered world, flat level surfaces are common, but adding legs to a robot introduces significant complexity, increased stress on the robot, and requires sophisticated balancing mechanisms. In a world that seems to romanticize humanoids without caring much for functionality, Open Droids has built their robot for functionality.
The team comes from the systemic altruism school of thought which is about focusing on lasting improvement to solve social problems at a local, national and global level. Just as the Royal Society of London Philosophical Transactions journal’s open-source research led to advancements in the scientific revolution, Open Droids is developing an open-source community leading the robotic revolution. Open Droid’s bet is that many humanoid market players are very black-box, while Open Droids will be the lowest-cost option available for researchers and hackers. Just like the GTM strategy of early computer players with research labs, Open Droids will provide that opportunity for robotics. Connecting a community of everyday hackers in their garages, researchers, and more will create exponential technological progression. Wanting the open source narrative to win is a big driver behind starting the company; they want individual consumers to have access to the hardware and software.
Consider now how impactful this will be when the community’s contributions lead to saving lives! Bear with me while I explain. With further enhancements and developments through open source, the R1D1 will have the capability to assist seniors in assisted living. Whether it be as a patient listener to their good old days, carrying personal and intelligible conversations, assisting them to go to the bathroom, bringing them medication, or most importantly, watching over them in case of any emergency situation. This could mean the difference between life or death.
Open Droids operates out of SF and was founded by Abhishek Gupta, Jackson Jesionowski, and Ashish Gupta. Abhishek is hardware design engineer from Stony Brook University in New York who has led multiple projects in nuclear, telecommunications and sensor based IoT platform design. He also has relevant strategy and finance experience, including an MBA from Canada. Jackson is a brilliant innovator and marketer whose expertise is in AI. Ashish is a wall street banker who has helped multiple companies go public on the NYSE. In Abhishek, Ashish and Jack, the team consists of futurists who have embarked on a vision for robotics that is open source and accessible to everyone. Open Droids is an early-stage robotics company, and the team is open to comments, questions, collaboration and talent.
They can be reached at abhi@opendroids.com or 647-937-9031. Learn more about Open Droids at their website here: opendroids.com
