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Watching this robot fail at building IKEA furniture will make you feel better about yourself

If you’ve struggled to put together IKEA furniture armed with nothing more than a prayer and a picture book, this will make you feel better. Not only are you not alone, but even machines can’t do it any better than you can. A new effort spearheaded by Francisco Suárez-Ruiz and Quang-Cuong Pham of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore shows that even robots, who in addition to their own fine motor skills, were developed by individuals with some serious engineering degrees, struggle with constructing IKEA furniture. IKEA, let this be a lesson to you — literally no one knows what you’re asking us to do.

The issue the robots faced, MIT Technology Review explains, is that they’re not human. Seriously. Whereas robots can be programmed to do certain, predetermined tasks very precisely and very efficiently, the rather imprecise and inefficient process of say, building an IKEA chair just doesn’t fit within the robot’s standard modus operandi. Suarez-Ruiz and Pham were trying to address this issue by building a bot equipped with two arms, each with six-axis motion and grippers at their ends, and a six-camera vision system that supposedly gives precise readings even at 3 mm (0.11 inches).

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Screen Shot 2015-09-30 at 2.26.49 PMRelatedCheck out this 4-gram robot that walks like an inchworm and jumps like a flea

But despite these impressive specs, the robot ran into issues almost from the get-go, mostly a result of its still very limited field of vision. The seemingly simple task of inserting a wooden dowel into a pre-drilled hole required a number of complex maneuvers (ultimately successfully completed) but after a significant bit of struggling. Really, the robots just look alternately blind, confused, or a bit drunk as they attempt to insert the pin. Which, honestly, is also probably what I look like anytime I take on the arduous task of building Swedish furniture on my own.

As much as the robot struggled during this initial phase, the researchers promise, “This work will continue until completion of all the tasks required for assembling an IKEA chair.” So prepare yourself for a lot more amusing robot antics. God knows this won’t be an easy task.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
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Official Imagery for Amazon Project Kuiper.

Amazon is aiming to take on SpaceX’s Starlink internet service using thousands of its own Project Kuiper satellites in low-Earth orbit.

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Electric vehicles are quietly crushing old stereotypes about being delicate or unreliable, and the data now backs it up in a big way. According to Germany’s ADAC — Europe’s largest roadside assistance provider — EVs are actually more reliable than their internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts. And this isn’t just a small study — it’s based on a staggering 3.6 million breakdowns in 2024 alone.
For cars registered between 2020 and 2022, EVs averaged just 4.2 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles, while ICE cars saw more than double that, at 10.4 per 1,000. Even with more EVs hitting the road, they only accounted for 1.2% of total breakdowns — a big win for the battery-powered crowd.
Among standout performers, some cars delivered exceptionally low breakdown rates. The Audi A4 clocked in at just 0.4 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles for 2022 models, with Tesla’s Model 3 right behind at 0.5. The Volkswagen ID.4, another popular EV, also impressed with a rate of 1.0 – as did the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross at 1.3. On the flip side, there were some major outliers: the Hyundai Ioniq 5 showed a surprisingly high 22.4 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles for its 2022 models, while the hybrid Toyota RAV4 posted 18.4.
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