Picking a Strawberry Without Bruising It
Deniz visits a greenhouse where a robot picks strawberries at night, talks to the engineers about the gripper that took three years, and to the pickers who still work the day shift.
The Robot That Holds the Camera in Surgery
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Show notes
A surgical robot, honestly described
Surgical robots are often described as if they operate on their own. They do not. Deniz watches a laparoscopic procedure in Ankara where a robot holds and moves the camera on the surgeon's voice command, then asks both the surgeon and the engineer what the machine adds and what it costs.
- What the robot actually controls and what the surgeon controls
- Why a steady camera changes the length of an operation
- Training a surgical team to trust a machine
- The price, the maintenance contract and who pays
- Explainer: safety stops and why a surgical robot moves slowly
Recorded with the hospital's permission, no patient details.
Transcript
Welcome back to Servo and Sense, I am Deniz Aksoy. Today we are in an operating theatre in Ankara, where a robot takes part in surgery. Before you picture a machine with a scalpel, let me correct that. This robot holds the camera. The surgeon says, left, up, closer, and the robot moves the view steadily so a human assistant does not have to stand for three hours with shaking hands. It sounds small. The surgeon will tell you it is not. We talk to her, to the engineer who installed it, and to the hospital manager who signed the invoice. Then a short explainer on why surgical robots move so slowly and why that is deliberate. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts. Scrub in.
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