Ball-throwing robot seal finds a talent for basketball, embarrassing humans (video)

You pick up your first tan leather roundball at the age of 9, you practice religiously for a decade before you can even feel worthy of calling yourself a basketball player , and then you find a video online of a robotic seal that can shoot better than you after just a few weeks in the lab. Yep, some Taiwanese know-it-alls have put together a robo-seal that converts 99 percent of shots (admittedly with a toy ball launched at a toy hoop) within a three-meter range. It’s basically just an articulating arm with stereo vision for some good old depth perception, but it’s sophisticated enough to maintain its killer accuracy even if the target is moved from its spot. That’s more lethal that Shaq or Karl Malone’s elbows ever were. Video’s after the break, skip to the 1:05 mark if you don’t care about the details of how it’s done. Continue reading Ball-throwing robot seal finds a talent for basketball, embarrassing humans (video) Ball-throwing robot seal finds a talent for basketball, embarrassing humans (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Posted by on March 3, 2011. Filed under News, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry