World's Fastest Robot Versus the Wiimote

kkleiner writes "Adept's Quattro, a placement and sorting arm, took the title of fastest robot last year, but it was only recently during National Robotics Week that it met its most gruesome opponents: nerds with Wiimotes. Visitors tried to keep the Quattro from placing and sorting on a small mechanized platform by moving it using the Nintendo video controller. The bottom line is that when it comes to simplified and repetitive tasks there's really no beating robotic prowess."

Comments

That's nothing. See this high speed robot hand.

[Animats]

That's nothing. The Adept robot is in production. Here's what's working in the lab. Watch the fingered robot hand tie knots in a rope, dribble balls, and throw a cell phone in the air and catch it in a different grip, all at about 5x human speed or better. This system has 1ms visual reaction time.

Working at very high speed has advantages. Once the reaction time of the systems is faster than movement caused by gravity and other disturbances, flexible objects like ropes and cloth can be manipulated in a straightforward way.