How One Japanese Professor Accidentally Kickstarted the Robot Revolution

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Let’s set the scene: it’s 1978. Disco is still a thing, Star Wars just changed cinema forever, and somewhere in Japan, Professor Hiroshi Makino of Yamanashi University is staring at an industrial robot, thinking, "This thing is slower than my grandma's dial-up internet."

See, Makino had just attended the International Symposium on Industrial Robots in Tokyo in 1977, where he saw the SIGMA assembly robot in action. And by "in action," I mean struggling like a toddler trying to use chopsticks for the first time. Inspired (or maybe just frustrated), Makino went full mad scientist and decided he could build something better.

Enter the SCARA Robot

Instead of keeping his genius to himself, Makino did what all great minds do—he built a squad. He gathered 13 Japanese companies and formed the SCARA Robot Consortium, which sounds like a secret Illuminati-style tech club, but with more engineering and fewer conspiracy theories. The goal? To create a Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA for short), a robot that could move fast, be super precise, and actually work efficiently in assembly lines.

And guess what? They nailed it.

By 1978, the first SCARA prototype was already built and being tested. Within just a few years, these robots were flying off the production line faster than limited-edition sneakers. By 1981, the first commercial SCARA robots hit the market, and industrial automation would never be the same.

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So… What’s the Big Deal?

The magic of SCARA robots comes down to speed and precision. Picture a high-speed sushi chef who never drops a roll and works 24/7 without complaining. SCARA’s unique four-axis design allowed it to be rigid in the vertical direction but flexible horizontally, meaning it could zip around quickly without losing accuracy.

This made it perfect for pick-and-place tasks, that are essential in the electronics industry. If you've ever wondered how your smartphone got assembled with all those tiny, delicate components, chances are a SCARA robot was involved.

The First Customer? A Music Box Company.

Believe it or not, the first business to jump on the SCARA train wasn’t some high-tech electronics firm—it was Sankyo Seiki, a Japanese music box manufacturer. That’s right. The first SCARA robots weren’t building microchips or assembling Teslas; they were cranking out little mechanical tunes.

But that was just the beginning. As more industries caught on to how efficient these robots were, SCARAs spread faster than AI-generated memes. Today, they’re used in everything from automotive assembly to medical device manufacturing.. Basically anywhere precision and speed are needed.

What’s the Lesson Here?

Makino could have just shrugged and accepted the clunky robots of his time. But instead, he asked the right question: “How can we do this better?” And that single question led to a revolution in manufacturing.

So, the next time you’re stuck on a problem, whether it's figuring out how to fix your Wi-Fi or debating whether to start that business idea -you might just be one breakthrough away from changing the game. Or at the very least, making sure future robots don’t end up as slow as 1970s tech.

That’s all folks!

Cheers, Jacek!