“The autonomous machine can place 20 to 30 stones in a single consignment – about as many as one delivery could supply.”
ETH Zurich’s HEAP excavator built a dry-stone wall six metres high and sixty-five metres long from multi-tonne boulders and demolition debris. It maps the site in 3D, estimates each stone’s weight and centre of gravity, and an algorithm picks where it goes. Dry-stone walling has always meant vast amounts of manual labour. The rocks were always cheap. The labour was what priced them out.