Overview of robots for board games

Board games like everything. But sometimes the opponent may not be available. And then what to do, all alone? Come to help the robots! In the post, consider a robot designed to play table tennis, air hockey, billiards and table football. In some cases, the robots are made specifically for the game, but in others - a universal helper robots or robots for industrial use.

Table Tennis h4>
Table tennis for over a hundred years. Only this game has gained popularity in the late nineteenth century, and the name Ping-Pong supposedly appeared in 1901. Of course, robotics was simply must get to the sport.

The recent rivalry Timm Bohl and robot for tennis from Kuka was not the first in the confrontation of people and machines. Let's start with the simplest devices. The video below - simulators capable only throw balls, but handy for fighting off not having. They will help you learn how to repel the attacks.







Such a device, if desired, can be assembled in his garage.



In China, the University Zhedzhiang in Guangzhou in 2011, developed a more advanced robot. In the video, two such robots play against each other, then one - against the man. At that time, the best result in a game of robots against each other - it's 176 hits, more than two minutes. And with a man - 145 strokes. Unfortunately, the speed of these robots is clearly not enough for serious play with a man.



A year ago, in May 2013, was published in the network video with this roborukoy for playing table tennis. The video roboruku teach primitive movements of the game. In order to further repel balls, robot combines known him blows. The more he trains - the better plays. Just like people.



So as not to remember the disappointment of this month - the robot Kuka. In February there was post that soon will be a duel between Timo Boll, fifteen times European champion, six-time world championship medalist, silver and bronze Olympic champion in 2008 and 2012, against roboruki KR 6 R900 SIXX (KR AGILUS) German company Kuka.



We are all together, including me, were waiting for videos of this fight, wanted to see a bloody fight ... And got full of pathos edited video with a lot of slow motion.



Much more impressive robot UHTTR-1 from Germany, on which its creator, Ulf Hoffman, worked for two years. Thanks to the chassis, ease materials - aluminum is used, and the quality servomotors roboruka very mobile, and thanks to good software - the ability to learn the game. Serve it still does not know how, but Hoffman continues to work on it.

Air Hockey h4>
Air hockey - a relatively young sport. He only appeared in 1960 in a completely random: three engineers built a table for testing air circulation, which is needed for other projects, and in his spare time playing at this table. Later, they decided to show the world his creation.

For the white team plays a robot. More about this robot could not find, unfortunately - a reference to the movie will not work.



In June 2013, Japanese developers of laboratory Namiki Chiba University presented this good-looking robot to play air hockey.





In February, there was this video. Robot on it collected from an air hockey table, details 3D printer, the PlayStation Eye camera and a microcontroller Arduino Mega . The robot is able to predict the movement of the puck, and he need not succumb. The level of complexity, you can optionally configure.

Billiards h4>
Homeland billiards with equal chances could be Asia, India or China. The first was with the famous pool table makes for Louis XI in 1469, and in Russia he got thanks to Peter I. The essence of the game - to drive the cue ball into a pocket, and the other rules depend on the particular form of the game.

For a robot to play pool, it is important to calculate the direction and force of impact. At the University of Queens in 2009 developed the Deep Green - the robot to play billiards. The design looks eerily and effectiveness strike rolls.



In 2010 the company Willow Garage teach your PR2 - Personal Robot 2 - the game of billiards. PR2 is a humanoid robot, equipped with two arms with seven degrees of freedom and the carrying capacity of 1, 8 kilos, sensors, including a camera of 5 megapixels and a laser rangefinder. The robot is constructed based on two computers 8-core servers, each of which contains a 24 GB RAM. PR2 runs on 16 batteries of laptops.





In 2011 at PR2 a worthy contender for game of the pool table. Thomas Nierhoff from Technical University of Munich presented a robot the size of a human hand is also equipped with 7 degrees of freedom. Manipulators can handle cue as it makes people - though more effectively through the camera mounted above the desk.



The video of 2012 - a demonstration of the robot IRB120 company ABB, play snooker. Not only that, he drove the ball into the hole, so he also knows how to enjoy his victories. This industrial robot weighs 25 kilograms and has a load capacity of 3 kg and a working area up to 58 centimeters.

Table football h4>


Determine the creator table football is not possible, since the beginning of the last century many patents filed on the subject. Perhaps it was the employee Citroën Lucien Rozangartan or Spaniard Alejandro Finisterre, editor. The only thing you can be sure that this is the prototype of the modern table appeared before the beginning of the 20s of the last century.

Robot in this case must be the same as man control lever, moving them back and forth around its axis. In the 2002 RoboCup robot presented KiRo for playing table football. 50 times per second KiRo receives information from sensors and decide on further action, then sends commands to the motor controller.



Later this project was really a massive game table StarKick.



This video presents a robot for a game of table football. In fact, at the time of publication of the video in Youtube (August 2013), was the only one willing roboruka running with a single lever. But its ability to send the ball at a speed of 6 meters per second at the right place allows a person to win in this unequal battle. Need to work hands simultaneous work of two computers - one makes you move very hand, and the other supplies its information. Camera for the second computer is mounted under a transparent table. Developers plan to do in the future one computer.



This is interesting:
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History of video game consoles in the advertisement. Part 1: from the Magnavox Odyssey to Super Nintendo
History of video game consoles in the advertisement. Part 2

Source: habrahabr.ru/company/boxowerview/blog/215961/