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!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
@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.
Pretty posh furniture for an engineering lab – I want to work there!
~Joe
The projector system they used would be super helpful for someone trying to learn how to play!
@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.
wow… this is fantastically fascinating. Gone are the days we look around for a partner to play pool.