Teaching Robots New Tricks Without Programming

cylonlover writes "Maya Cakmak, a researcher from Georgia Tech, spent the summer at Willow Garage creating a user-friendly system that teaches the PR2 robot simple tasks. The kicker is that it doesn't require any traditional programming skills whatsoever – it works by physically guiding the robot's arms while giving it verbal commands. After inviting regular people to give it a try, she found that with few instructions they were able to teach the PR2 how to retrieve medicine from a cabinet and fold a t-shirt."

Comments

Re:Fold a shirt?

[oodaloop]

I hear ya. I've found folding laundry so complicated, that I just have my mom do it for me and bring the folded clothes to my basement.

For a Second There

[Greyfox]

I read the headline as "Teasing Robots Without Programming."

"Hey Robot, look at you just sitting there! It's because you don't have any programming! I'm going to sharpie a penis on your case! Ooh! Don't like that? If you had some programming you could do something about it! And you'd have the ability to not like it!"

Oh dear, now someone's probably going to arrest me for cyber-bullying...