Is the ability to play Tetris the beginning of the robot apocalypse?
Lego Mindstorms robots built to perform tasks such as solving the Rubik’s Cube/opening wormholes inspired inventor Branislav Kisacanin to invent his own. Kisacanin’s robot actually plays videogames, namely Tetris, all by itself.
It does a pretty good job of it too, even though the robot currently only plays on level 1. The speed at which pieces fall in Tetris is determined by the level, and 1 is the slowest. The Tetris-bot operates through the use of a camera, a TI DM6437 DSP board (running embedded vision and artificial intelligence algorithms), and a three-finger Lego NXT Mindstorms robotic hand according to Kisacanin. He explains a little more in the video.
Kisacanin’s favorite game of all time is Tetris, and he also wanted to create a fun, educational project for his kids. It’s pretty neat, but he’ll never make a space shuttle blast-off unless he can get the Tetris-bot up to at least level 9. Still, the way this thing works is pretty impressive, because Tetris is a game where you must make smart judgments on nearly every move lest you face an overwhelming pile of pieces that cannot be removed. When robots can physically play Tetris like the Tetris-bot on level 9, I’m going to head straight for a bunker, because it’ll mean the robots are far too powerful.
Source: Pop Sci
