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Author Topic: Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.  (Read 2023 times)

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Offline Mental Hobbit

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 09:44:33 »
Robots just got roped into doing some light housework. Researchers at UC Berkeley used Willow Garage’s PR2 robot to fold towels.
Full article here.

I'm wondering what's so fascinating about watching a robot fold towels - but it is ****ing fascinating. Interesting background article on the open source Personal Robot here.

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Offline hyperlinked

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #1 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 09:54:44 »
That is awesome! I love how it spins the towel around to figure out where the ends are!
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Offline Nonmouse

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #2 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 11:14:05 »
That looks almost exactly like how I fold towels- "Where the hell's the corner?  Oh, there it is....  Damnit, why can't I find the other corner?   Ah-ha!"   Fold fold fold...
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Offline clickclack

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #3 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 15:06:57 »
Mesmerizing!
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Offline Mental Hobbit

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #4 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 16:02:02 »
Quote from: webwit;169306
So this is the same as a robot programmed to paint a car. Or a washing machine.


Not really. Robots programmed to paint cars washing machines have to be told when and where exactly to expect a car or a washing machine. If you feed the car painting robot a washing machine and the washing machine robot a car, the outcome will be nasty.
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Offline clickclack

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #5 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 16:06:12 »
Quote from: webwit;169306
I'm not so impressed because I just see a thing executing a programmer's algorithm, very obviously. So this is the same as a robot programmed to paint a car. Or a washing machine. Nice tool though.


yeah, but, but.... did you see the way it moves???

Hmmm... come to think of it, if its searching for the corners, then I wonder how interesting it would be if you handed it a round table cloth to fold =D
« Last Edit: Sat, 03 April 2010, 16:07:11 by clickclack »
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Offline Rajagra

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #6 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 16:35:34 »
My cat tends to sleep on any crumpled towels it finds lying around. This could make a deadly (but cartoon-like) combination.
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Offline Mental Hobbit

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Breakthrough: Personal Robot Folds Towels.
« Reply #7 on: Sat, 03 April 2010, 19:00:43 »
I think it'll take a couple more years of development till the robot can properly skin a cat before folding it.
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