WTF Science: Scientists build robot that shoots arrows

Seriously, what the hell is goin on here

Dr. Petar Kormushev and his colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology's (IIT) Advanced Robotics Dept. love to teach human skills to robots...Dr. Kormushev and company have now taught a robot to be a skilled archer in just eight tries.

Above is a picture of said archer. The good news is he has the body of a 3 and a half year old baby. The bad news is that he's iCub, an open source robot, so there's more of him out there. Kinda like little versions of the ones in I, Robot. Are they planning to make a mediocre movie? They must be stopped. But first we have to get our hands on ARCHER (Augmented Reward Chained Regression), the learning algorithm that enabled the iCub to learn to hit bulls eyes in the first place. After every trial, the iCub sees where his arrow hit and consequently adjusts his aim for the next try.

video after the jump






Scary shit right?