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Man and Living

Dirk van der Kooij

Photographer: René van der Hulst

A PRODUCTION ROBOT CAN BE REPROGRAMMED

This is Fanuc: heavyset, yellow, and dilapidated, but still fast as lightning. He was pensioned off after a 140,000 hour non-stop career in a Chinese production line. Dirk van der Kooij has given him new software and with that, a new lease of life as a prototyping machine. Normally speaking, rapid prototyping is unsuitable for large-scale production: constructing 3D-models in extremely high resolutions is too time-consuming and costly. But Fanuc has a much lower resolution, which allows him to produce robust models at a steady pace. The coarse structure reveals how the product has been constructed layer by layer. Endless combines the flexibility of traditional workmanship with the speed of industrial production.