Before Skynet becomes self-aware, watch these DARPA robots fail miserably
Unless you’ve been living under a rock with your fingers in your ears, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that technology has altered numerous portions of everyday life.
Amazon has patented their drone delivery system, Pizza Hut is rolling out a pizza box that projects movies, and you can buy any number of bracelets that tell you exactly how lazy you are.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the wing of the Department of Defense that develops emerging technology, has got them all beat though.
And the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which has been held yearly since 2012, showcases the best of the best in robotic systems designed for “assisting humans in responding to natural and man-made disasters.’’ The competion is designed to be extremely difficult and extremely rewarding.
MIT, whose cheetah robot recently made strides enough to scale 18-inch hurdles, entered a robot, named Atlas, which completed most of the course.
Beyond the bragging rights, the winners pocket $2 million. All they have to do is complete a “circuit of consecutive physical tasks, with degraded communications between the robots and their operators.’’
We could show you some of the marvels of human ingenuity and creativity. We could show you how well the winners, Team Kaist from the Republic of Korea, fared.
Instead, here’s robots falling over and looking stupid, courtesy of the IEEE Spectrum’s YouTube page. Enjoy.
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