Covering robotics stories is one of my favorite tasks on this blog. It never ceases to amaze me how many new developments are being made everyday in this field! For example, in recent news it turns out that Toyota employees in Japan built a robot that can swish basketballs. This is quite an accomplishment and an amusing story in my opinion!
Get a look at this new robot called CUE!
Well it isn't a match for Steph Curry or Lebron James yet but one thing the CUE and these guys have in common is the fact that they can all score basket after basket. Clearly it doesn't take a human to do that anymore!
So lets dig a bit deeper here. CUE is a humanoid robot trained by AI to shoot basketballs. Toyota built it in Japan and it was first unveiled in the B League 1, a professional men's basketball league in Japan. Apparently it "was able to record a higher shot percentage than any Japanese professional," according to Newsweek.
So lets get into some technical details shall we? CUE can shoot from 12 feet (3.6 meters) away and can make 200,000 different shots with almost perfect accuracy. It has this amazing ability due to its advanced AI training.
So what about its shortcomings? Well clearly CUE's shooting range is absolutely outstanding it lacks defensive skills and cant be of much use on the court beyond making incredibly accurate shots. Beyond that CUE has to stand on a platform connected by power cables. Its biggest shortcoming seems to be the fact that it can't move freely around the court. Although CUE's shooting abilities can really leave a crowd in awe it isn't quite ready to compete with NBA basketball stars like Lebron James... yet.
Please leave thoughts and comments below!
Source:
This basketball-playing robot is coming for you, Steph Curry - CNET
Image Source:
CNET