The Department of Technological Studies at Ohio Northern University developed these ice cream serving robots as part of an extracurricular activity for ONU’s homecoming festivities. The project took 5 weeks and included 26 students.
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A lot of schools do this type of stuff, I wish more of them would post video. Every once in a while they get truly ingenious.
Bravo, ONU.
Good to see students getting practical experience in real-world applications. Good use of educational fundng. I just felt good watching it.
26 students=2 code writers +24 students procuring the ice cream machine.
5 weeks=4 weeks of discussion+1 week of actual work.
Anybody who has had “group” projects in college knows what I’m talking about!
Ok great project.. love seeing robotics projects in any context… BUT apparently none of the 26 students had taken an english class after about 1stgrade…
Seriously.. “Is the spoon and cup in place?”..
Wow, robotics have advanced to the point where they can do a job that usually requires the intelligence and physical dexterity of a snot-nosed teenager.
#3. I got vertigo from college rushing back at me so fast.
It was damn hard leading all of those discussions and procuring those ice-cream machines.
Thanks for the memories! :^)
domo arigato mr ice cream roboto……
so we’ve become so fat in this country that we now need robots to get our ice cream for us?? (apologies to the tonight show)
#6, I’m sure there were students who would have preferred that the robot pour a beer, but you know how that goes.
400 people served. $671,000 worth of equipment tied up for 9 weeks total, representing a fair amortization burn of $21,837, ice cream supplies worth $17.31, topping supplies worth $12.56, cups worth $21.82 and spoons worth $9.77, plus $86.55 worth of electricity.
Total project expenses $21,985.01.
Total cost per serving $54.96.
The economy is looking up.
Wasn’t this done 2 years ago by 8th graders with a couple of mindstorm sets?
I agree with # 10 lividd, this really isn’t impressive for college students.
People confuse Hi Tech gadgets with Hi eduction. Just like people fool them selfs into forcing their kids to learn MicroSoft products as a idea of being eductated.
Most of the best ideas in the world have come before there where computers and robots.
College should be more then just what practically any technical vocational school offers, it should be about developing critical thinking skills. College is about preparing people to advance the subject matter in a particular field, that is; going beyond what is already known. I don’t see any of that here.
All the learning of theory and actual programming could have been done on far less expensive and time consuming equipment.
This college must be awash in money. No wonder why college tuition is going sky-high and yet the actual educational attainment is going down.
seems like more chocolate chips ended up on the counter then on the ice cream.