This robot makes a T-shirt from start to finish

It's hard to teach a robot to sew.

Robots are good at handling materials that are rigid and easy to lift, cut and maneuver. It's why they're are widely used in auto manufacturing.

But it's a different story with making clothes. There's some automation in garment manufacturing, but you still won't find robots sewing clothes from start to finish.

Why? Fabric is floppy. "It has no corners and edges. It stretches and snags." said entrepreneur Jonathan Zornow, whose startup Sewbo has found a way around that.

Zornow's solution was to temporarily stiffen fabric with a water-soluble polymer, making it rigid enough for a robot to handle.The substance easily washes out in warm water and returns fabric to its original softness.

The goal was to program the robotic arm to fully assemble a T-shirt from start to finish. It followed a sequence of functions: a machine cuts cloth panels to be sewn, the panels are drenched with the polymer and stiffened, a robotic arm uses suction cups to lift each panel and position it in a sewing machine. Finally, the robotic arm lifts the stitched T-shirt off the sewing machine.

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