The South Korean robotics team Team Kaist, with their robot DRC-Hubo, took home the gold and a $2 million prize at the DARPA Robotics Challenge, held last weekend in California. There was much hauling, climbing and falling over at the competition, which tasked the robots with completing eight tasks related to clearing and repairing a disaster site. Team Kaist’s leader, Jun Ho Oh said that his robot succeeded in completing the tasks quickly because of its strong structure and its ability to switch between walking and rolling.
The second place winners were IHMC Robotics from Florida, with Carnegie Mellon University’s Chimp robot from Team Tartan Rescue coming in third. Three robots failed to complete any of the tasks.
Rise and falls of the disaster droids
It’s a scenario straight out of a Hollywood movie. A disaster too dangerous for humans to enter, so a robot must drive alone into the area, and do the dirty work of inspecting, repairing and clearing the site. The muscly, humanoid robots looked like Terminators, but they moved like drunks trying to pass a sobriety test.
