On an artificial turf soccer field, ten-inch-high plastic robots sprouting a multitude of wires maneuvered around their anxious handlers and dozens of laptop computers. This little beauty was brought all the way from Taiwan* (ed.) by the engineering students of Tamkan University.
According to team leader Yu-Ting Yang, this is the fourth generation of humanoid running robots that they've developed. When we spoke to Yang, they were ironing out some last-minute bugs before the Robot Dash, in which bots are required to run forward four feet, recognize an obstacle, and run back to the finish line -- backwards. In order to see the insurmountable wall of plastic binders set up as the obstacle, TKU's bot has a camera mounted in its face, which would come in handy for the later events of autonomous humanoid robot soccer.
Photograph by Lane Hartwell.
*Thanks to readers; just double-checked my notes and Taiwan is correct.
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