- The Hadrian X construction robot has reached 200 bricks per hour.
- Fastbrick Robotics has worked on its robot for years, with a goal of 1,000 bricks per hour.
- The human record is 915 bricks per hour, set 33 years ago.
A brick-laying robot named Hadrian X has broken its own record for speed, which is now up to 200 concrete blocks per hour—with the next landmark set at 240. (Its sibling robot Hadrian 112 aims to reach 1,000.)
Watch it in action:
“When you consider that manual brick and block laying costs globally vary anywhere from AUD10 (US$6.90) per square meter to AUD100 (US$69) per square meter, we are already cost competitive across a broad range of the market at 200 blocks per hour,” Fastbrick Robotics CEO Mike Pivac said in a statement.
That’s before any labor shortage is taken into account—cost is irrelevant if you can’t persuade people to train for the gig. (In the U.S., numbers of construction workers have fallen since the 1960s, with a precipitous drop after the 2008 recession and yet-unknown ramifications from the COVID-19 recession.)
The robot works by using sensors and what Fastbrick calls Dynamic Stabilisation Technology (DST) to adjust for “wind, vibration and other environmental factors instantly, enabling precise positioning of objects over large distances outside,” the Australian firm says on its site.
The robot's onboard computer has an entire 3D CAD rendering of the planned building, and the DST system helps it stay lined up and on task. In the video, it lays pristine, solid, concrete bricks in a dry situation, but Hadrian X can mortar as well.
Cost and workforce are both factors for the construction industry, but humans still have a large advantage over even this speedy robot. The record for bricklaying is 915 in an hour, set in 1987 by American bricklayer Bob Boil. (Incredibly, the fact is nestled in a news story about an 85-year-old bricklayer who tried to break the record but “only” managed 780 bricks.)
In fact, there is an annual event called the Spec Mix Bricklayer 500, where people from around the world try to win the title of best bricklayer and, maybe someday, to break Boil’s longstanding record. Here’s the 2019 championship highlight tape. No spoilers.
Caroline Delbert is a writer, avid reader, and contributing editor at Pop Mech. She's also an enthusiast of just about everything. Her favorite topics include nuclear energy, cosmology, math of everyday things, and the philosophy of it all.
