By Zak Stone

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise may have just released its seventh installment this month, but here's some inspiration for an eighth: What if the killer were a robot capable of using a chainsaw for a precision of slicing and dicing that no human is capable of?

A prototype may exist in Germany, although its creators --German designers Tom Pawlofsky and Tibor Weissmahr--had more pacifistic intentions in mind: furniture building. In the video above, a robotic arm makes a couple of quick, deliberate cuts into a tree trunk. The result? Three useable stools, and minimal scrap wood.

The process was demonstrated at design week in Cologne earlier this month, where audience members were able to purchase the pieces after watching their creation. The stools are part of a product line called kkaarrlls, a collaboration between design students at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and Echtwald, a sustainable design firm with a focus on reforestation. If all wooden furniture was made with this efficiency, perhaps we wouldn't have to use up so many trees.

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