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Berkeley Gets Willow Garage Robot To Fold Towels
kkleiner writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley used Willow Garage's PR2 robot to fold towels. The UCB programming used some innovative visual scanning techniques, allowing the PR2 to pick up a towel, find its corners, and fold it on a table perfectly. According to the paper presented at the 2010 ICRA (PDF), the robot successfully completed 50 out of 50 attempts to fold a single towel, and also folded 5 out of 5 towels when they were presented in a group. Is watching a robot do laundry really that exciting? Hell yes — wait until you see the video! UC Berkeley used a Willow Garage robot to develop their own sophisticated robotics program. That validates the whole premise of the PR2 — faster development by letting researchers use a common platform. Score one for open source robotics!"
Obviously, this robot knows where its towel is.
Ezekiel 23:20
The real question is, will it match my socks?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
That is truly awesome.
But before I file for my divorce, I need to know if they also were able to match socks from the laundry.
They could name it Ford Prefect, but a more suitable name would be Fold Perfect.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
The real question is: Can it fold paper more than 7 times?
they took our jerbs!
This thing can pierce and twist any and all of your innards - game set and match.
Skynet: 1
Human race: Dead
Now only if I could get my wife to do that...
I, for one, welcome our new robotic towel folding overlords.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
We are but towels to the robots, existing only to be folded, and patted neatly into place on a table. Mark this day.
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
>If this thing could fold halter tops, (especially the ones with the built in bra things) I would happily shell out some loot for one. Women's clothing is a strange, strange beast.
This *is* slashdot, I don't think anyone here is going to have that problem.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
I dunno. Sometimes I can go years without folding the towels. I'm going to have to call "improvement" on this one.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Robots should be kept barefoot and in the kitchen... ;)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I want to see what it would do if a cat jumped up on the table...
Is it also running Folding@Home in the background?
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