Popular Science has an excellent article on how Josephine Cochrane transformed how dishes are cleaned by inventing an automated dish washing machine and obtaining a patent in 1886. Dishwashers had been attempted before, but hers was the first with the revolutionary idea of using water pressure to clean dishes placed in wire racks, rather than […]
There’s a story that goes back to the 1980s or so about an engineering professor who laid down a challenge to the students of his automation class: design a robot to perform the most mundane of household tasks — washing the dishes. The students divided up into groups, batted ideas around, and presented their designs. […]