当婴儿用品遇到高端机器人技术

    大项目，小包装

    毕业于卡耐基梅隆大学（Carnegie Mellon University）、37年前加入通用汽车公司的索恩听到后会心一笑。这是一个能够让他施展机器人技术的项目。他说：“我生来就是为了设计这个。”

    索恩说他的机器人技术背景让4Moms设计团队的创新变得更简单。他说：“他们不必担心那些内部的机械难题，因为他们知道我能解决。”

    他本以为他需要一年半的时间就能实现自己的想法，实际上却花了五年。他说：“太让人吃惊了。你本以为你脑子里都想好了。但是把这个自动折叠婴儿车做出来需要花很长时间。”

    4Moms的所有产品都有高科技。制作婴儿座椅mamaRoo时，工程师使用电极模仿人类父母弹跳和摇晃的动作。设计起来最复杂的产品要数婴儿床，它由72根连杆构件组合而成。索恩说：“你从床中间往下推，床的四角就会向旁边展开。”

    4Moms现在正在研发新型的座椅、手推车和婴儿床，同时计划制作另一个婴儿类别的产品，该类别尚未命名。

    索恩说，把自动折叠婴儿车带入市场——并送入父母的怀抱，让他感到其乐无穷。他说：“在通用公司，可能只有咖啡壶旁边的五个电工会觉得我很厉害。现在呢，娜塔莉•波特曼，考特尼•卡戴珊、珍妮弗•加纳和千千万万的女性都喜欢我做的事。它的回报是千百倍的。”（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    Big engineering projects, small packages

    Thorne, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University who had worked at GM 37 years ago, beamed. Here was a project that would let him exercise his robotics skills. "I was born to make that invention," he says.

    Thorne says his robotics background makes innovation easier for 4Moms' design team. "They don't have to worry about the mechanical goo inside because they know I can do it," he says.

    He thought he'd need a year-and-a-half to bring his vision to life. It took five. "It is shocking," he says. "You think you had it in your head. It takes a long time to make a power-folding stroller."

    All 4Moms products are high-tech. To make its mamaRoo, the engineers used electrodes to mimic human parents' bouncing and swaying motions. The most complex product to design was the playard, which operates under a 72-bar linkage. "You push it down from the center, and that causes the corners to move sideways," Thorne says.

    4moms is currently developing new models of seats, strollers, and playards and it plans to introduce a product in another, yet unnamed, baby category.

    Thorne says he's had a fun ride bringing the power-folding stroller to market -- and into the arms of parents. "At GM, maybe five electricians around the coffee pot thought I was great," he says. "Now I have Natalie Portman, Courtney Kardashian, and Jennifer Garner and thousands of other women loving what I am doing. It is a thousand times more rewarding."