Sartorial Robots Sew Fashion And Robotics Together

Move over self-lacing shoes. While you're still bidding your time to fulfill childhood dreams, a fleet of these tiny robots might already be busy zipping up clothes. Adam Whiton from MIT's Personal Robots Group is introducing a new kind of robot, one that does not fly, does not clean, and does not cuddle. These "sartorial robots" have one purpose and one purpose only, to give a more human appeal to robots by incorporating them into one of the most human pursuits of all: clothing.

Clothing and fashion are uniquely human ideas. Even monkeys don't try to sew luxurious gowns or design seasonal wear. Blending the field of robotics into this area would, in theory, greatly influence the social aspects of human and robot interaction. Whether that's good or not, only time will be able to tell. And considering sartorial robotics is practically unheard off, it might take a long time.

Zipperbot is the first fruit of this fringe field of robotics and it does what its name says: zip up, or down, clothes. It can do so by itself or it can work in tandem with another Zipperbot for the opposite effect. And it does so all by its own. For now, considering its bulk, it can only zip isolated pieces of cloth or detached wrap-around sleeves. Smaller version in the future could open up more possibilities.

Will sartorial robots have a use outside of a social and laboratory experiment? It's too early to tell. It's possible that future smaller descendants of this robots could be employed on areas of clothing that are normally hard to to reach. But a more interesting application, perhaps, would be in empowering physically challenged people. These auto-zipping robots and their future kin could very well help those with limited flexibility or movement get through the basics of zipping up their own jeans without having to wait for others to do it for them.

SOURCE: MIT