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Category: employment – Page 40

The processing of food at high volumes has traditionally posed many problems for robots and cobots, and has lagged behind other industries. Foods have a variety of shapes and sizes and can be delicate in nature. These variables can be challenging when a robot tries to grasp an item. The delicate often has strict requirements for quality, making them even harder to grasp (think: strawberries).

Non-automotive robot orders now represent 58% of the North American total. Unit sales to the food and consumer goods sector alone increased 29% in 2021 over 2020, according to Association for Advancing Automation (A3).

“More industries recognized that robotics could help reverse productivity declines and fill repetitive jobs human workers don’t want. It is no longer a choice whether to deploy robots and automation,” says Jeff Burnstein, president of A3. “It’s now an absolute imperative. As we’ve long believed—and users continue to confirm—robots help companies compete, ultimately creating more jobs to handle their growth.”

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2022 is set to be a major year for the space economy. According to the Space Foundation, 15 new launch vehicles are set to debut this year, more than any other year in space history. Last year, US spaceports had more launches than any year since 1967, and the number is climbing. Meanwhile, employment in the core US space industry employment is at a 10-year high.

The momentum is there for a flourishing space economy that, according to NASA leaders, could in 20 years take public and private missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), with services and infrastructure on the lunar surface and in cislunar space. It’s a fast-growing economy, NASA leaders said at the 37th Space Symposium, that offers promising opportunities for young people who want to get their foot in the door.

The space economy is already a $400 billion industry “and on the way to $1 trillion, and I suspect it’ll get there faster than we think,” James Reuter, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA, said during a panel this week at the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

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The study found that if such a system were put in place nationwide, 94 percent of human operator hours may be affected, which could account for as many as 500,000 jobs.

In a situation where automation is restricted only to Sun Belt states, as rough weather poses a challenge to automation, about 10 percent of worker operator hours will be affected. If automation is deployed nationwide only during the spring and summer months, about half the nation’s trucking hours could go driverless.

“I think the most surprising thing there was that everyone we spoke to basically said ‘yeah, this can be done,’” Vaishnav said.

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Traditional wisdom says that 3D printers are unsuitable for manufacturing. There are several reasons for that, including cost, part quality, and time, but labor is one of the most significant challenges. With conventional 3D printers, an operator must remove parts between jobs. That has a cost and slows down large production runs. Belt 3D printers solve this problem and also allow for infinite printing in one axis. Tinybelt, a new 3D printer on Kickstarter right now, makes this technology affordable.

The Tinybelt Kickstarter campaign is currently a third of the way to its $80,000 funding goal and needs your help to reach that goal. But you won’t want to contribute out of a sense of charity — you’ll want to back this campaign because Tinybelt has a lot to offer at an extremely competitive price. Tinybelt’s closest competition, the Creality CR-30 “3DPrintMill,” costs about $1,050. Tinybelt is available on Kickstarter right now for $499. Even at that low price, Tinybelt has a larger build volume than the competition.

As with other belt 3D printers 0, Tinybelt has one axis that is infinite. That means you can print parts as long as you want or print an unlimited number of parts—or both. The other two axes are 300mm and 200mm, which is almost twice the area of the Creality CR-30. A special nozzle made by Slice Engineering for the Mosquito hot end allows for printing at a shallower angle. Other specs are comparable, including the use of a dual-gear Bowden extruder.

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Tesla’s Fremont Factory could have its production capacity increased, according to CEO Elon Musk. Tesla is “considering expanding [Fremont] significantly,” Musk said in a Tweet last night.

Following Musk’s heavily publicized jab at President Joe Biden on Tuesday night for not mentioning Tesla in the State of the Union Speech with the likes of Ford and GM, who received Biden’s praise for electric vehicle projects resulting in employment opportunities. While Biden commended Ford for $11 billion invested and 11,000 new jobs and GM for $7 billion and 4,000 new employment opportunities in Michigan, Musk hit back with a valid point.

“Tesla has created over 50,000 US jobs building electric vehicles & is investing more than double GM + Ford combined,” he said, alerting “the person running this account” to give Tesla more credit.

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