SAM

September 16, 2019
Journalist Waldman (Rust: The Longest War) delivers a lively look at the team behind SAM, a “semi-automated mason” bricklaying machine designed to “revolutionize construction.” Engineer Scott Peters and construction project manager Nate Podkaminer founded “Construction Robotics” in 2007 and, supported by a team of engineers, debuted SAM in 2013. Waldman has an eye for details that sum up character—of two mismatched company employees, he observes one, a conservative Republican, “listened to classic rock and didn’t recycle”; the other, a liberal Democrat, “listened to podcasts and did”—and for dramatic end-of-chapter cliffhangers. He also provides enough background on the construction business, “the second biggest industry in America,” yet one famously resistant to change, to help explain why SAM met stubborn resistance from the construction crews it was intended to help. Despite the sometimes dizzying proliferation of technical acronyms—for example, SAM’s predecessors, ERMaS (Experimental Robotic Masonry System) and MAMA (Mechatronically Assisted Mason’s Aide)—Waldman’s storytelling remains engaging as he follows the team from building sites across the U.S. to the “World of Concrete” trade show in Las Vegas, then to an enticing but elusive opportunity in Dubai. This gripping story of a “scrappy little start-up” proves its author to be an industrious reporter and natural storyteller.

October 15, 2019
Gripping tale of a robot arm and an unexpected application to which it was put to work. Laying down courses of bricks is difficult work, requiring masons to lift tons of materials daily. From this observation came a light-bulb moment: A New York architect named Nate Podkaminer pondered whether it would be possible to automate the process by using a robot. Employing members of his family, he set out on the quest to construct what, in one iteration, was "an oversize contraption--capable of laying forty-pound cinder blocks as well as four-pound bricks--powered by an undersize motor, resting on undersize rails." With tinkering, writes Waldman (Rust: The Longest War, 2015), Podkaminer and company were able to cook up SAM, for "semi-automated mason," semi- because while the machine, built up from a Swiss-made robotic arm, was able to lift and set down bricks, it required human masons to point and clean up the mortar bonding them. (The Swiss firm "thought a bricklaying robot was crazy.") No one involved was a bricklayer as such but instead process engineers and the like. The real bricklayers, as one might expect, were suspicious and a little hostile at first; one said, "if a robot told me where to lay bricks, I think I'd shove it off the scaffold!" Though assured that humans were in charge and that jobs for masons would grow, since lowering the cost of laying bricks would mean more brick buildings would go up in the place of steel and glass, the firm continued to meet resistance--but kept on plugging all the same, to quietly triumphant ends. As one learns a great deal about geology from John McPhee and computers from Tracy Kidder, Waldman offers a lively, accessible overview of the bricklayer's art, which is much more complex than one might think. Apart from engendering an appreciation for the uses of technology, the author also adds to the literature surrounding the dignity of artful labor. Human meets machine, and both prevail in an engaging story of technology and discovery.

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Starred review from November 1, 2019

Waldman's (Rust) latest, short for Semi Automated Mason, presents a compelling, well-paced, and engaging account of the innovations developed by the startup Construction Robotics. The narrative hinges on the motivations for developing an automated way to lay bricks and bring Silicon Valley-like "disruption" and "revolution" to the way builders work. Readers will come to appreciate how challenging the application of automation to construction is; construction sites are chaotic and do not lend themselves well to automation of the type that the group behind Construction Robotics is attempting. Each chapter does double duty introducing a problem facing the team while also personalizing the challenge faced by an individual engineer, architect, businessperson, or union member, to name a few. Through these in-depth vignettes of individuals and their motivations, readers learn about the automation technologies that the team will cobble together to bring their semiautomated mason to life. VERDICT Fans of applied iterative trial and error, common to all innovation work, will appreciate this latest piece of popular science and technology.--Jim Hahn, Univ. Lib., Univ. of Illinois, Urbana

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2019
GM engineer Scott Peters and Podkaminer, Peters' girlfriend's father, first discussed automated bricklaying in 2006. They believed that a semi-automated mason, or SAM, could completely change the construction industry, and assembled a team to make it happen. Peters and Podkaminer's company, Construction Robotics, spent a decade creating prototypes and measuring bricks laid per hour as they iterated toward a product they could run on job sites. Journalist Waldman (Rust, 2015) chronicles the start-up's progress, from a hint of an idea to a machine that lays over 1,000 bricks per day. Relating the history of Construction Robotics and SAM, Waldman illustrates the tension between innovation and tradition in a millennia-old profession. Even with a clear vision, Peters had to learn from failures on job sites while trying to convince masons to work with him to run the robot. Waldman's storytelling draws readers in, particularly through his use of color-adding footnotes that appear throughout the book. Readers interested in business and innovation will find a fascinating insider's view of a small, ambitious organization in SAM.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)