This segment originally aired July 19, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
Meet the Semi-Automated Mason, or SAM, a robot that’s really good — and really fast — at building walls.
Created by New York-based Construction Robotics, this bricklaying robot promises to both increase productivity while reducing overall labor costs.
While the efficiency rate at construction sites has been stagnant for the past 20 to 30 years, manufacturing efficiency has increased significantly due to robotics and technology.
Construction Robotics created SAM to solve that problem. SAM requires a human partner to smooth over the works, but the heavy lifting is left to the bot.
The robot can lay bricks at least three times faster than humans — and it never gets tired or makes mistakes.
HBO’s VICE News went to a construction site in Winchester, Virginia to see SAM at work.
Cool fact: While SAM was working at our job site for Shenandoah University, it set a world record for the most bricks laid in an eight-hour period: 3,270. To learn more about SAM, Construction Robotics, and the JD Long Companies, please read here.