Man vs Machine is always a theme that will continue playing out for quite some time to come, no doubt about that. After all, we have seen how humans have more or less competed against computers in the game of chess, but when it comes to something more physical than cerebral, robots have a problem here since they have to deal with coordination and computation, where the former requires a whole lot of work. Students from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have come up with a robot table-football (aka foosball) player which is capable of kicking the ball faster compared to most humans’ reaction times, but will they be as accurate as a human?
I am quite sure that in due time, the robot would have been “injected” with improvements to its artificial intelligence to be a formidable opponent, in addition to getting upgrades to its accuracy and ability to strategize. This particular robot foosball player is capable of kicking the ball across the table and into the goal, normally before most folks are able to set up their defense. A couple of computers will power its levers, sending the ball at a speed of six meters (20 feet) a second, and a camera is essential to make sure that this robot has got the tabs on the game at all times.