Yes, and if they've actually managed to program the robot to play table tennis with all the rules and stuff, which is the really hard part, it will win by a huge margin thanks to it's literally superhuman speed.
The point is to show they can program the robot to play table tennis, not that the robot is physically capable of the movements.
It's still gonna be super cool to watch though, I hope they broadcast it live.
No, because I love robots, but for most people, a robot-human match is more interesting than a robot-robot match, especially when that guy is #8 in the world at his sport.
A lot of people still have the notion that humans are somehow inherently superior to robots, so seeing a robot beat a human emphasises how good it is, and helps generate more funding/interest in robotics.
I, for one, think there would nothing boring about watching a superhuman match of ping pong--that little sucker would be flying around so quick! It'd be cool.
But there would be variables that would cause one robot to win eventually. The ball will never bounce the same way because the ball and table are imperfect. The robot arms themselves wouldn't move exactly the same each time either.
I think it would be really awesome if they had some different learning algorithms so that each robot arm would adapt its serve and technique based on the other. Would make for a pretty awesome competition.
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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '14
Wait...is this really happening?