If the world is going to end in a “Terminator”-esque apocalypse prompted by a Skynet-like organization, then it won’t happen with the robots that took part in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
Team KAIST of South Korea won last weekend’s $2 million prize due to its robot’s handling of various disaster scenarios. The obstacle course set up by the Pentagon challenged all 24 teams, with videos of robots tripping and tumbling to the ground quickly going viral.
“It’s amazing how we anthropomorphize these things. It’s a pile of aluminum and copper wire and software. I don’t cheer for my laptop. But people cheer for these [robots]. And of course when it falls, we all feel terrible, ’Uh, it got hurt,’” DARPA program manager Dr. Gill Pratt told the technology website IEEE Spectrum.
Only three teams taking part in the competition had a robot make it through the Pomoma, California, obstacle course unscathed.
DARPA’s Robotic Challenge was created in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Officials hope that the lessons learned during the competition will help engineers build better robots for responding to disaster relief efforts.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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