We have updated KUKA|prc with a range of new features!

• KUKA KR125/2 robot has been added to the range of available robots
• LIN and PTP movements now accept also planes as input (right-click/Input Type)
• After the initial calculation, speed is much improved (up to 400%)
• Kinematic solver has been improved to more accurately reflect the robot’s internal solver

This version has been tested by members of the Association for Robots in Architecture for several weeks and should be stable for both Rhinoceros 4 and Rhinoceros 5 users. If you run into any problems, please do not hesitate to contact us!

The download also contains a brief tutorial to get you started with KUKA|prc. Download it from the KUKA|prc page.

ROB|ARCH has been initiated by the Association for Robots in Architecture as a new conference series on the use of robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design, closely linking industry with cutting-edge research institutions. In December 2012 the conference was hosted by its founders in Vienna, Austria. In 2014 the conference travels to North America, hosted by the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Continuing with the previous theme of international collaboration, the conference seeks to bring together artists, designers, fabricators, and industry leaders for the purpose of advancing the discourse surrounding robotic fabrication. Following on the success of ROB|ARCH 2012, the conference will again present a series of workshops held at select research institutions on the east coast of the United States, aimed at exposing the advanced capabilities of applied robotic research. Following the workshops, the conference will span two days at the University of Michigan Campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about an hour outside of Detroit, the origin of robotics in North America. The internationally renowned publishing house Springer Wien/New York will publish and market the proceedings of the conference worldwide.

For the 2014 event, we are extending a call for workshop proposals. See call.robarch2014.org for more information.

Schedule
15.4.2013 1st Call for Workshops
15.5.2013 2nd Call for Workshops
15.6.2013 Workshop Submission Deadline
01.7.2013 Workshop Notification

The robot team at IAAC, among them Gabriel-Bello Diaz and Alexandre Dubor who presented their paper on Magnetic Architecture at Rob|Arch 2012, are members of the Association for Robots in Architecture and using KUKA|prc for their robot courses. They have posted images and videos of their recent Machinic Conversations course at the IAAC Blog. We’re really thrilled what they did with KUKA|prc!

2013 is also shaping up to be a busy year for the Association for Robots in Architecture: At the end of January, we were invited by INA to hold a robot workshop at the Hochschule Trier in Germany, followed by a workshop for KUKA CEE‘s robot partners in Turkey in February. In March, Robots in Architecture held a lecture as part of the Computation Design an Architecture in Turkey conference in Istanbul, and a KUKA|prc workshop at the IEU’s department of architecture in Izmir, Turkey. Just last week, we had the pleasure to hold an evening lecture at Co-de-iT‘s and rese-arch‘s Digital Architecture Symposium, which was part of their CTRL.SHIFT workshop in Vienna.

The following events are upcoming:

25.4. – 26.4.: Lecture at the KUKA Idea Exchange in Upper Austria

26.4. – 27.4.: Robot workshop with a KUKA Agilus at IUAV in Venice

14.5.: KUKA|prc workshop at CAADRIA 2013 in Singapore

1.7. – 2.7.: Robot workshop at CAAD Futures 2013 in Shanghai

In addition to the papers that were presented at Rob|Arch 2012 and published in the Rob|Arch book, the Association for Robots in Architecture sent out a call for video contributions to artists, researchers, students and companies world-wide. These impressive videos show the extremely wide range of robotic projects in the creative industry – from cutting-edge robotic milling, to new endeffectors, and even completely customized robots themselves.

At Rob|Arch 2012, the video contributions were shown at the conference venue to an audience of 250 international experts. It is now our pleasure to present the Rob|Arch 2012 video contributions to a worldwide audience.

Rob|Arch 2012 Video Contribution Album @ Vimeo

Fabio D’Agnano has invited us for a lecture and workshop for the Master Architettura Digitale program at IUAV in Venice, Italy from April 26th to 27th. A KUKA Agilus robot is coming with us, possibly requiring heavy rowing from the gondoliere.

As part of this year’s CAADRIA conference, the Association for Robots in Architecture is hosting a one-day workshop “Introduction to KUKA|prc” in Singapore on May 14th. The workshop is offered free of charge to all conference attendees! Visit www.caadria2013.org for more information about the conference.

To sign up, please send an eMail directly to robots[at]robotsinarchitecture.org – we are looking forward to seeing you in Singapore!

We have updated KUKA|prc with a range of new features, including an entirely new interface for the Rhino 5 version, the brand new KUKA KR6 Agilus robot, and a new milling spindle, amongst others. The Rhino 4 version of KUKA|prc works with both Rhino 4 and 5, while the Rhino 5 version works exclusively with Rhino 5. Please note that there is a new licensing strategy for the Rhino 5 version, please contact us in case you run into any problems. The download contains KUKA|prc for Rhino 4 and 5 in separate directories.

Please download it from the KUKA|prc page.

Dear Rob|Arch2012 participants, authors, co-chairs and sponsors,

We hope that you had relaxing holidays and a good start into the New Year!
Rob|Arch 2012 was a great success and we thank you for your positive feedback and the good wishes for the future events. From what we have heard, Rob|Arch not only provided great inspiration, but also lead to quite a few new collaborations and projects within the community.
We have uploaded nearly 15mins of workshop videos at Vimeo and 360 photos both on Facebook and the conference homepage.
The video submissions and presentations will follow soon – we are still post-processing the huge data volume.
We would like to thank nevv.org for their support, our photographers Eugen, Raimund and Marko for a good documentation, and all people involved in the conference workshops for their hard work.

Finally, we want to introduce the new ROBARCH list, inspired by lists such as ECAADE and CAADRIA, which are of great use to the community. The new ROBARCH list will link together architects, artists, designers, and engineers involved in robotic fabrication and promote new events, posts interesting job openings etc. The first official ROBARCH eMail will go out soon, please let us know if you have anything to announce!

Have fun with the first part of the online RobArch2012 documentation and thank you all for having been part of RobArch2012!

With kind regards from Vienna!
Sigrid & Johannes

Robots in Architecture is on the road again with workshops in:
January 17-19 Istanbul, Turkey
January 21-24 Trier, Germany
April 25-28 Master I Architettura I Digitale I Iuav, Venice, Italy
July 1-5 CAADFUTURES, Tongji University, Shanghai China
Summer 2013: Robots in Architecture goes Down Under in Australia

Robots in Architecture has just joined Facebook! As Rob|Arch is coming increasingly closer, we’ll try to frequently post up-to-date information about the preparations. All essential information will of course also be posted on robarch2012.org

Go to www.facebook.com/robotsinarchitecture - you do not have to be a member of Facebook to view this page, as we will be posting publicly.

We’re glad to announce that the final batch of robots has arrived in Vienna, three Staeubli TX90 robots, ranging from normal size to the XL variant, which will be used for the SciArc workshop at Rob|Arch. The ABB IRB 120 for Thibault Schwartz’ workshop already arrived a while ago. The Association’s KR16-2 aren’t on workshop duty, but will exhibited at the conference as well. While the workshops in Vienna are nearly fully booked out, there are still some places left e.g. for Graz, which is connected to Vienna by a direct 2.5h train connection. For more details on Rob|Arch, please go to www.robarch2012.org

KUKA|prc has been updated! This release contains a new robot model, various bugfixes (especially regarding endeffector orientation) and improvements in regards to speed and stability.

Please download it from the KUKA|prc page.

We had an exciting time at this year’s ACADIA! Jason Kelly Johnson and his team did a great job in organizing a memorable event. A good appetizer for Rob|Arch2012 were the presentations of robotic projects by Rob|Arch co-chairs ETH Zürich, University of Stuttgart, University of Michigan, SciArc, and Harvard.

SciArc’s Brandon Kruysman and Jonathan Proto hosted a spraypainting workshop with one small Stäubli robot – this time they did not spraypaint Germany´s Next Topmodel but a deepdrawn plastic torso in ACADIA´s main colors black and pink.

After this taste of Rob|Arch we presented our new conference during the conference dinner and it became very clear- the ACADIA community wants to see more robots!

So we are happy to invite you to join the full scale robotic workshop of hot-wire cutting hosted by Michigan (Wes McGee) and TU Delft (Jelle Ferringa), or a full scale robotic bridge construction hosted by TU Graz,  a mere 2-hour trainride away from the main conference site in Vienna! Quite a few workshops are already full, so please register as soon as possible via registration.robarch2012.org

We are also proud to announce that thanks to Jason Kelly Johnson´s initiative, the Association for Robots in Architecture has now become a sister organization of ACADIA! We have big footprints to fill!

Last but not least, we want to congratulate David Rutten for his extremely well-deserved ACADIA 2012 Award!

At the upcoming Rob|Arch 2012 conference, 8 universities are organizing robot workshops and 18 papers will be presented, alongside cutting edge developments of industry partners. As even a five-day event cannot cover the whole scope of robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design, the Association for Robots in Architecture invites research institutions and companies, as well as individual artists, architects, designers, engineers, researchers, and students to submit video presentations of their “robotic” work to the Rob|Arch 2012 conference. The video clips should showcase new developments and innovative projects that are relevant to the conference topic of robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design.
All video presentations that get approved by a jury of experts will be shown at the conference/exhibition to the Rob|Arch 2012 attendees, among them CEOs of major robot companies as well as industry partners and internationally recognized researchers, architects, and artists. Furthermore, they will be published on the Rob|Arch conference homepage, www.robarch2012.org, to a wide internet audience.
To submit a clip, please go to http://videosubmission.robarch2012.org and click on Make Submission. The Submission page contains detailed instructions regarding the required video format.

Submission Deadline: 20.11.2012

Rob|Arch 2012 is the first international conference on robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design. From December 14th to 16th, eight parallel robot-workshops led by internationally recognised specialists from institutions such as the University of Stuttgart, TU Delft, ETH Zurich, TU Graz, SciArc, University of Michigan, Harvard, and TU Vienna will take place at four locations distributed throughout Europe, immersing participants to cutting-edge robotic research.
The results of the workshops as well as research projects, chosen by the scientific committee, will be presented and discussed at the conference from December 17th to 18th. Keynote lecturers Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler from ETH Zurich, Achim Menges from the University of Stuttgart, and artists Clemens Neugebauer and Martin Kölldorfer will show different approaches how robots can be used in the creative industry.

The production of the conference workshop documentary and the live broadcasting at the RobArch-Pavilion will be performed by NEVV.ORG digital media.

Please register for the conference at http://registration.robarch2012.org . The early registration is extended! If you have any questions, contact the conference chair at chair@robarch2012.org

The Association for Robots in Architecture was recently invited to host a Virtual Robot workshop at this year’s eCAADe conference in Prague.

In the workshop, we discussed ways of how to approximate material behavior in Grasshopper and how to implement a workflow that allows the user to automatically generate robot control files  (mass customization). The latter approach is based on a real-life object where KUKA|prc was used: A 17x23m large aluminium sculpture by artists Neugebauer & Kölldorfer for Red Bull, where 83 positive molds were milled with a robot and then cast in aluminium.

We had more than 20 participants at the workshops – researchers, professionals, and students from all over the world (e.g. Brazil, United States, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Turkey…).

After the workshop, we presented our research paper “Real-Time Robot Simulation and Control for Architectural Design” – you can access it on our publication page.

A large thank you goes to the participants for their enthusiasm, the eCAADe organizers for hosting a really great conference, and KUKA for their continuous support.

We are proud to announce a new version of KUKA|prc that is based on a fully rewritten robot-engine, opening up a huge range of new possibilities. First and foremost, KUKA|prc is no longer limited to linear-toolpaths, as needed e.g. for milling, but can work with a wide variety of motion commands with adjustable speeds: Linear motions, Point-to-point motions, and direct axis commands. Correctly utilizing these specialized movement commands can greatly optimize robotic jobs.

Another exciting feature is the addition of a generic KRL component that can include any possible KRL code, e.g. for communicating with external devices, as we did at the Design Modelling Symposium in Berlin last year. By attaching custom endeffectors to each command (e.g. an open gripper to the OPEN command and a closed gripper to the CLOSE command) you can see the results directly in the kinematic simulation.

The kinematic solver has also been greatly improved, and can now correctly interpret the state bits (see above), i.e. the eight different strategies how the industrial robot can approach a given frame (equivalent to a plane in GH). In the graphic above, the robot’s sixth axis is always in exactly the same position in relation to the robot’s base – only the other joints are differently oriented.

For your convenience we have also started directly including robot models inside the plugin. These components contain not only the chosen robot’s geometry, but also its kinematic data and axis limits. If your robot is not yet included, send us an eMail and we’ll try to include it in the next release. If you are a member of the Association, we can build you a special version of KUKA|prc within a few days.

Finally, we’ve included a new method for fluid motion  interpolation. In the example above, the robot interpolates between two poses, just as it would do in reality. This feature is still under development, but already accessible in the “Experimental” tab of the kinematic solver settings.

Due to all of these new features, the new release of KUKA|prc is no longer compatible with older versions. We do know that many of you have ongoing projects with KUKA|prc and have therefore decided to offer two versions for download: A STABLE version, which is basically a slightly improved version of the previous release and fully compatible with your exisiting projects, and a BETA version, which contains all of the new features mentioned above.

You can download KUKA|prc from here - after entering your eMail address you will be provided with download links to both the STABLE and BETA version of KUKA|prc. The BETA download also contains a well-documented sample project that should show you how to use the new KUKA|prc features. You can alternatively download the project directly from here.

Many of the new features of KUKA|prc are the result of user requests – so keep that feedback coming!

In the past months, Robots in Architecture was busy organizing the upcoming Rob|Arch 2012 conference, so news was a bit slow. Here’s what happened recently:

Red Bull Arch

On June 1st, artists C. Neugebauer and M. Köhldorfer unveiled  their huge 17x23m aluminium arch scuplture for the Red Bull Circuit in Spielberg/Austria. The  robotic fabrication of the 83 positive foam molds was all done using a customized version of KUKA|prc on a KUKA KR150-2 robot, which the artists purchased from the automotive industry for this particular project. The Association helped them set up the robot, customized KUKA|prc for their particular needs and developed a workflow for efficiently producing all parts of the arch. Neugebauer and Köhldorfer will provide an in-depth look into that project at our Rob|Arch conference in December.

GENIBOTICS and ECER

We are also proud to announce that the FFG-funded project GENIBOTICS (project lead: G. Koppensteiner, ACIN, TU Vienna) was recently approved. This project explores the use of robots as a gender-equal tool for getting children interested in technology and therefore aligns perfectly with the Association’s goal of making industrial robots available to a wider range of users. As a project partner, we will focus on industrial robots, while other robotic aspects are covered by institutes such as TU Vienna’s ACIN. As part of the project, Eric Dokulil – KUKA expert and member of the Association’s board – attended the IEEE European Conference on Educational Robotics (ECER12) conference in Vienna, during which the European Botball Tournament took place. Eric Dokulil presented his KUKA KR16-2 robot and KUKA|prc to the  middle and high-school aged tournament participants and provided an introduction to industrial robots.

Every year in the summer, Vienna’s universities organize the KinderUni (children’s university). As part of this year’s KinderUni, Robots in Architecture is hosting a half-day robot workshop targeted at children between 7 and 12. We’re looking forward to it!

VDI: Industrial Robotics 2012

In Mid-June, the Association for Robots in Architecture was invited to present their research at the VDI’s (Association for German Engineers) conference on industrial robots in Baden-Baden/Germany. We had a very interesting time and impressed quite a few people with how easily complex, robotic tasks can be programmed and automated using KUKA|prc.

Rob|Arch Robolab

For our robot-courses at TU Vienna we have now moved all our industrial robots to the Arsenal, an industrial area currently rented by the university and also the location of many of the Rob|Arch 2012 workshops. We are now housing one KUKA KR16-2 with KRC2, one KUKA KR16-2 with the new KRC4 control unit and Smartpad, as well as an ABB IRB120, which will be used for Thibault Schwartz‘s workshop. Coming soon are three more Staeubli robots for the Sci-Arc workshop. Our students have much fun exploring the capabilities of these very different robots. See below photos of a recent workshop that sees KUKA and ABB robots harmoniously cooperating on one of our student’s project. We want to thank the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Klaus Semsroth, and GUT-director Gerald Hodecek, for making this happen, as well as KUKA, ABB, and Staeubli for their support.

Upcoming Events

17.7. KinderUni half-day robot workshop for children aged 7-12

10. – 11.9. Robot workshop at eCAADe 2012 in Prague/Czech Republic

14.-18.12. Rob|Arch 2012 conference & workshops

ROB|ARCH has been initiated by the Association for Robots in Architecture as a new conference series on the use of robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design, closely linking industry with cutting-edge research institutions.

In addition to the previously announced seven workshops, hosted by TU Delft, University of Michigan, University of Stuttgart, TU Graz, ETH Zurich, TU Vienna, Hal, and the Association for Robots in Architecture at four locations throughout Europe, SciArc is joining the Rob|Arch 2012 conference and will be offering another robot workshop. Staeubli is providing three industrial robots for the workshop, which is going to take place alongside three other robot workshops at TU Vienna’s Arsenal location.

The registration for the Rob|Arch 2012 conference is now open at registration.robarch2012.org

Thanks to the generous support of our main sponsor KUKA, our sponsors ABB, Schunk, as well as our workshop sponsors Staeubli, Zeman, SuperTex and Euchner, we can offer an reduced early-registration fee of 50% for professionals and even 70% for students.

499€ - early Regular registration: One robot workshop (to be selected in the registration form), conference admission, conference dinner, and printed Springer proceedings.

299€ - early Student registration: One robot workshop (to be selected in the registration form), conference admission and conference dinner. Printed Springer proceedings are available at a reduced price.

The early registration prices are valid until October 1st, workshop spaces are limited to allow every participant plenty of time with the robots. At the moment, conference-only registration is not available; we encourage all participants of the conference to attend a robot workshop.

Due to the much higher than expected amount of submitted abstracts, the full paper submission will use the well-established OpenConf system to facilitate the review process. Full papers, using the provided template at www.robarch2012.org/submission, can be submitted until the 16th of July. Everyone is eligible to submit papers, though authors who previously submitted abstracts do have the advantage of having received valuable feedback from the reviewers.

A few weeks ago we introduced our students at TU Vienna to Grasshopper and KUKA|prc and prepared a short (~2 hour) tutorial. Due to popular request, we are now making the files and the accompanying slides publicly available

You can download the tutorial files from here

Please note that this tutorial was initially prepared as a reference for the students who actively attended the workshop and not as a standalone-tutorial. If you run into any problems, send me an eMail

We have also fixed some bugs in KUKA|prc and uploaded a new version, which should be 100% compatible with the previous version. As always, you can get it from here. There may be some compiler issues, so if you encounter any problems, the old version can still be downloaded from here - let us know if anything isn’t working properly.

The next major release of KUKA|prc , which is already running beautifully on our machines, will quite radically change the way KUKA|prc works and – if everything goes as planned – be published along with some proper tutorials and videos.

This year, our course Architectural Geometry at TU Vienna (Sigrid Brell-Cokcan & Johannes Braumann – Association for Robots in Architecture, Michael Hofer – WWTF, Michael Eigensatz – Evolute) was stormed by no less than 70 students, thereby posing serious logistical troubles as such a group would not safely fit into TU Vienna’s model building workshop.

Fortunately, ABB Austria was so kind to offer us to use their facilities in Wiener Neudorf, including no less than 4 robots from really small to really large – time for a fieldtrip! As guest lecturer, we invited Thibault Schwartz, Association for Robots in Architecture member and developer of HAL, to present his work to our students. It was an eventful day, with much hands-on robot time.

We even hosted our very own robot competition, whose grand prize – a toy-robot with movable axes – was provided by ABB, along with some ABB-branded wine for the runner-ups. We want to thank to David Kittel and Martin Kohlmaier for being supportive on such short notice!

On March 1st, KUKA CEE celebrated the opening of its new robot college in Linz, Austria. Robots in Architecture was invited to provide the evening’s robotic entertainment using the on-site available KUKA KR16-2 robots with the new KRC4 control unit and SmartPAD interface.

The first robot performed parametric punching using gradients that the guests were drawing themselves on an iPad, while the second robot had a milling spindle with a conical milling tool as an endeffector. Due to the shape of the tool, variations in toolpath depth resulted in holes of varying diameters – an effect that was amplified by using white polyurethane blocks coated with black acrylic coating, resulting in a stark contrast between the black surface and the white holes. Portraits of the guest themselves, shot just a few minutes before the milling of each piece, were used to control the fully automated toolpath generation. As you can see in the video, the result was not abstract art, but immediately recognizable portraits done in a way that only a robot can do.

Many VIPs from industry and politics enjoyed the Robots in Architecture show, taking their portraits immediately to their next appointments instead of having them sent via mail. It is great to have KUKA as supporting members of our Association and we expect more great leaps forward in the near future!