The Art of Designing Ag Robots
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
Developing the next generation of agricultural equipment requires a sophisticated knowledge of engineering and technology like artificial intelligence. But there’s also an art to designing these tools more to be simple, durable and user-friendly for farmers. Charlie Andersen, CEO of Burro, says those creative touches can make all the difference.
Andersen… “ I think that, when you're early phase, when you're building these types of things, there's an incredible level of creativity and spontaneity to get something working quickly. A lot of engineers get very hung up on perfecting something and really slow down. And Terry–who's now an advisor of the company, he's no longer with us day to day–but at that point in time, it's in mid 2017-18, he was able to magically create stuff really quickly. Let me give an example. We have this sound that plays within the system. It's like a popping sound. And that was a Terry-ism where he found a sampling of a guy on YouTube like pulling his cheek to make a pop. And that is now like the sound we use in our UI for robot in motion. And it's not a backup alarm, it's not like a whooshing sound and you can sample it up or down speed-wise based on speed. So that's something where, in my view, that's kind of artistry. It's understanding how a user might perceive something and then riffing on something in a way that might be perceived as janky to make something really work. That kind of creativity is pretty hard to find in the robotic space.”
Learn more about Burro’s operations at burro.ai.
