Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em

Good news for luddites seeking something people can do better than machines: Robots suck at folding clothes.

That’s the general consensus of experts over the years who have tried to build machines to do this most mundane of household tasks.

Of course, researchers didn’t say “suck.” In a National Public Radio report, they favored people over machines for clothes-folding because of “the complex configuration space as well as the highly non-linear dynamics of deformable objects.”

In other words, it’s hard to build a robot that can fit in the places where clothes need to be folded − both industrially and domestically − and a pile of clothes is a real mess to sort. In other, other words, robots suck at folding.

The latest attempt to straighten this wrinkly state of affairs will unfold (ahem) at a robotics conference in Japan later this month. There, German creators will make a case for their SpeedFolding system, a device with two bubbly, plastic arms that taper down to pinchers.

The inventors have already released a video on YouTube. It shows the SpeedFolding robot attempting two different methods of folding a shirt.

The first is the “fling to fold,” which looks like the way most people fold when they want to do a decent job. The robot picks up the rumpled shirt, shakes it like a Polaroid picture, and places it flat on the work surface. It then folds back each sleeve before performing a third fold at about mid-chest height. The results are pretty good, too. (I define “pretty good” as a folded shirt that would pass muster with my wife.)

The second is the “two-seconds fold,” which looks like the way most 5-year-olds fold shirts, by grabbing it at random and scrunching it together. The results are about what you would expect.

I feel sorry for the robot. The NPR article notes that it can fold only about 30 to 40 garments per hour with a 93% success rate. That’s far slower than all but the most inept of human clothes-folders.

This is no John Henry vs. a steam-powered machine to see who could crack more rocks. If you know that old song, Henry and his hammer win, but then he dies from the strain, with the implication being that modern technology may not be victorious yet, but will be eventually.

No, any sort of robot vs. person laundry battle is going to end with the human winning easily, then sauntering off to enjoy a pina colada on the veranda while the robot folder is still licking its pneumatic wounds.

Especially with an estimated price tag of $58,000.

I mean, maybe that would pay off in an industrial setting where there are thousands of items to be folded each day. Here at Casa Schillig, where there are but dozens of items each week, I can’t see the need, unless the robot could also be trained to clean out the gutters, mow the grass and wash the car.

Even then, $58,000 is a lot.

However, I humbly suggest that the SpeedFolding folks could score a big win if they would focus on just one aspect of the task − fitted sheets.

In my experience, there is no way to fold a fitted sheet that doesn’t involve copious amounts of swearing, pulling of the sheet in diverse directions at once, shaking (both the sheet and one’s fist at the gods), and eventual acknowledgment that it can’t be done.

Except that it can. Every fitted sheet came nicely folded when originally purchased, even if it never looks that way again.

If a robot could do that, maybe I could lay down my hammer and accept defeat.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.