Robots in Texas

We visited Escobedo Construction to view the first of three unique park benches.  Designed with Randy Twaddle, artist, the benches are being cut on a 5-axis OMAG robot in Kyle, Texas.  No two benches are the same and none of the exposed faces are planar.  This entry into robotic fabrication is exciting for us after attending the Robots in Architecture conference recently and now having to opportunity to apply this technology to a permanent installation for a new feature on top of a landscape in the renovation of Herman Park in Houston.  The benches are made out of Lueders Limestone in three sizes the largest of which will be monolithic, extending over 9' long and will weight over a ton.  The smallest one has been milled and will be finished by hand at this point with some faces left with the toolpath marks.  Each bench will have an inscription and the robot will engrave the text along the topological surface after the final round of finishing.  The tooling diameters range from 16" down to 1/8" end mill bits.