From IEEE Spectrum:

Well, it’s inevitable now. RoboGames obviously needs to add a new event: robot pool. Willow Garage got their PR2 sinking balls as part of a week-long hackathon, and at ICRA, the Germans answered back with a similarly-sized dual arm robot able to pocket five balls in a row.

Thomas Nierhoff, a masters student at Technische Universität München (TUM), used a human-sized mobile robot with dual 7-DOF arms that’s able to manipulate a pool cue similarly to how a human does. A camera above the table tracked the positions of the balls and helped the robot plan its shots, separating each into various difficulty thresholds to help the bot decide which it should take. It managed to nail most of the easier shots about 80% of the time, which isn’t too shabby, and seems like it would probably make it competitive with the PR2.

It’s a shame, then, that Germany is such a long way from California. But wait! It just so happens that there are several PR2s in Germany. And it also just so happens that one of them is right there at TUM, albeit in a different lab. Personally, I don’t see how it would be possible not to set up a friendly little game, and if Rosie wants to get involved too, I’m all for that.

omgcreepyawesome!

4 Comments

1. 

   Joe

   June 3, 2011 at 12:53 pm

   Pretty posh furniture for an engineering lab – I want to work there!
   ~Joe

2. 

   Andrew

   June 3, 2011 at 6:25 pm

   The projector system they used would be super helpful for someone trying to learn how to play!

3. 

   johngineer

   June 4, 2011 at 11:15 am

   @Andrew: I’m thinking it’s only a matter of time before someone uses Kinect + a projector, and makes an interactive pool table that analyzes the table and projects the most likely successful shot.

4. 

   ekid

   June 5, 2011 at 3:11 pm

   wow… this is fantastically fascinating. Gone are the days we look around for a partner to play pool.

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