Rethink"s workplace robot is now smarter and easier to train

Sawyer’s best trick is still its teach-by-demonstration feature. Users can move the arm around and trigger different components by hand, such as its wrist-worn camera, to show what a task should look like. Sawyer will then remember the steps and replicate them on demand — a fast, simple way for businesses to automate construction, diagnostics and repairs. When something went wrong, however, it could be tricky for untrained workers to source and fix the problem, because parts of the underlying code were ‘hidden’ or difficult to find. Now, the robot should be easier to tweak, making initial deployments and complex reassignments faster.