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Berkeley Gets Willow Garage Robot To Fold Towels

Posted by Soulskill on from the thanks-rosie dept.

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!"

4 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    As a 49 yo feminist, grandmother, and C programmer I find that offensive. There's a 50% chance that your wife would be a better coder than you and that you should be folding the socks.

  2. I need this. by swanzilla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My fiance and I have different towel folding approaches. She implements a "thirds" method, whereas I go "halves" until it looks approximately the same size as the others in the closet. I hear about it on a bi-weekly basis.

    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.

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  3. I want an f'ing robot by religious+freak · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How do I get one?

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  4. open source...fast? by recharged95 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With the video sped up 50x (or 30x)... not impressed.
    Now this and this or this... which all are at normal speeds... much more impressive. And all have existed for at least a year...
    I'm a believer of OSS, but the above gets a 'no new news here' tag in my book.