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I, Foos: Robotic Foosball Device Enables Solo Play

Posted by timothy on from the if-you're-only-semi-sociable dept.

thehomeland writes "NewScientist.com reports of a new device produced by Bernhard Nebel at the University of Freiburg in Germany that allows one to play foosball solo -- with a robotic opponent. May be available next year for 20,000 Euros." What about ping-pong?

7 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. For that price, couldn't you buy a friend? by Ahnteis · · Score: 3, Funny

    It sounds like a fun toy and all, but if you're that desperate for a partner, pay some teenager a couple of bucks an hour. :P

    On the other hand, if you've got money to burn, I suppose why not?

  2. Well, we had to do something after we cured cancer by mabu · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now that all other scientific horizons have been crossed, we're tackling the age-old problem of solo foosball.

  3. Heh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Cue 'playing with yourself' jokes here.

    1. Re:Heh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Play with your own (foot)balls?

  4. Re:What about ping-pong? by ArmorFiend · · Score: 5, Funny

    There once was a Robotics program that did make a ping-pong robot. It was good. Real good. Had a robot arm, swatted the ping pong ball like it was Forrest Gump.

    I think this was CMU.

    Anyway, they were going to demo this to the board of trustees. They'd tested it lots, but since it was an important demo they set it up and gave a test run before the trustees came in. It performed perfectly.

    The demo began. On the first serve the robot froze and locked up. The trustees and researchers gathered in around it to try to analyze the problem. The robot un-froze and smacked a trustee in the forehead.

    What was going on? They'd written the robot's AI in a garbage collected language. In all their relatively short test runs they'd never triggered the GC. By running the pre-demo test, then leaving the machine warm, they'd used up all their heap, and on the first ball it'd decided to GC. This was old hardware and took several minutes (during which time people gathered in around it). When it came out of GC, it had finally computed where to swing the paddle to hit that (long dead) ball. Unfortunately that was the exact same region of space as the trustees head. SMAK!

  5. Great! by tjlsmith · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now my Foozball game can match my sex life!

    --
    Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
  6. What they need to do... by f8free · · Score: 2, Funny

    is get together with the http://www.robocup.org/ people and some miniaturization experts, and come up with a total RoboFoosball table.
    Forget spinning those sticks, you could coach the little guys! Against the inhuman RoboCoach!