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Miami Robotics Challenge Dec 20-21 — Parallax Forums

Miami Robotics Challenge Dec 20-21

Comments

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,255
    edited 2013-12-23 09:11
    http://news.yahoo.com/robots-future-q-darpa-director-arati-prabhakar-121352811.html

    Trust us. "The "D" in DARPA is "Defense." What could go wrong? :)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,255
    edited 2013-12-24 16:19
    Juggernaut Google dominates: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/12/23/googles-schaft-robot-dominates-pentagon-contest/?mod=yahoo_hs

    What a lonely thread. 317 views, no replies. Good thing I like to talk to myself.

    At this point, I'm going for some kind of record. I don't want anyone else to break the silence. Please respect the sanctity of this lonely old man's solitary thread! I will continue to update and talk to myself here as long as I am uninterrupted.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2013-12-24 17:03
    Erco,

    Go back and look at your last link… not at the robot stories, keep looking down at all the horrible news stories that followed. One tragedy after another. Real Bah Humbug
    stuff.

    BUT… finally, if you keep looking there is a link to Santa Claus' location... the man, not the town in Indiana, where Jay Cutler was born.

    http://www.noradsanta.org

    Rich
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,255
    edited 2013-12-30 20:11
    Hey Rich, thanks for chiming in. Yes, plenty of bad news around, so focus on the good stuff! :)

    Here's another article on "How Google Clobbered the Competition": http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/12/29/how-googles-new-robot-destroyed-the-competition-at.aspx#.UsJDZzx3tok

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diaZFIUBMBQ
  • ZywackZywack Posts: 11
    edited 2013-12-31 08:06
    This challenge is actually what got me interested in robotics! In short: Article on Valkyrie from gaming website -> DARPA Challenge -> Youtube stream comments -> UBR1 -> Activity Bot

    I was thrilled by what I was seeing: I'm a software programmer by trade, and I could see that the amount of variables to consider during that contest must be absolutely staggering. Seeing the robots occasionally succeed in those tasks was amazing to me.

    For the general population however, I'd say that this contest was probably very disapointing. I have shown the stream to some people, and all the answers were along the lines of: "The robot is doing nothing!" "Why is it so slow?" "I thought current robots were way more advanced than that!" "That's the most boring thing I've ever seen in my life"

    To be entirely fair, that was my own reaction in the first few minutes of watching the stream, until I watched the "introduction video to the door challenge", which made me start thinking about how simple movements from us are not so simple after all. The more I thought about each action, its effects, and how complex the software behind it all has to be, the more I started to appreciate what I was watching. The majority of comments on the stream were mostly along the line of "This sucks" or "Asimo is way better" with the occasional technical discussion, with usually a total of 700 users watching. That event was definitively not a success for the general public, but I'm sure it was extremely helpful for robotics in general! I'm a bit sad that team Chiron got 0 points though, I liked the design.

    Regarding the "What will Google do with their robot army?", I'm not even going to try to venture a guess :)
  • jdoleckijdolecki Posts: 726
    edited 2013-12-31 09:20
    They have a whole bunch of youtube videos.

    Under DARPA

    And I already planning on going to the event next year if they have one.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,255
    edited 2013-12-31 11:57
    jdolecki wrote: »
    And I already planning on going to the event next year if they have one.

    Don't say I didn't tell you on Dec 14! :)
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