Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Dancing Robot - How To Save Dances




Japanese robotics engineers have created a robot that can with a fair degree of accuracy replicate a dancers movements. The dancing robot demonstrates how far bi-pedal robots have come in recent years, and the accuracy with which they can move in as similar a fashion to humans. It is no small feat to develop a robot that can shift its weight from one foot to another without falling over, let alone create one that can move with a great deal of grace and fluidity. Credited with being used to 'record' and then replay traditional dances that with time may otherwise be lost to history, this could become an interesting way to document spacial information, and then have it replayed back later. It could be applied not only to dance, but also to sport, saving the curling free kick of David Beckham, or the swing of Tiger Woods. Then the robot could beocme a teacher, complete with all the best moves in the industry. Not to be too distracted by the artisitic good intentions of its developers, the Guardian points out the often darker military reasons why such robots have been developed. So perhaps even if we are really not so far away from having humanoid robots on stage, it probably isn't long before they are patrolling the streets.