I'm always on the hunt for interesting topics to spin up articles about and today I've got a special treat for my readers. What if I told you there was another sport going on in parallel to the Olympic games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
This was a sport for programmers and engineers pitting their finest creations against those of their peers. And if you're reading this at the moment then you'll already know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about robot skiers!
If you thought humans were the only creations able to hit the slopes then you'd be completely wrong. Yes, robots can ski too, well, kind of... The fails are quite entertaining otherwise...
In this competition, eight teams from universities and companies across the country competed. The name of the game was simple. Each team sent a completely autonomous humanoid down a 70-meter-long ski slope. Each robot was equipped with sensors to detect obstacles. As you can imagine there were a few epic fails in addition to a couple successful missions to go with them. According to people who witnessed this spectacle, the result was impressive at times, but more often than not it was completely comical. Check out the highlights in the video below before reading my analysis.
Well! Not bad eh? I thought there were some very impressive robots making their way intrepidly down the slopes! In all honesty I had a lot more fun watching the fails but there is a lot of hope for robot skiiers overall I would say! This was a pretty cool competition the South Koreans organized and is certainly worthy of coverage!
Great work South Korea!
What are your thoughts on this competition? Were the robots more capable then you had imagined before watching the video?
Drop some comments below and let me know what you thought about it.
Thanks for reading @Techblogger!
Source:
Robots skiing remind us how far away the apocalypse is - Quartz
Image Source:
Quartz