Sawyer Robot Give out Halloween Candy

07 Nov 2017 POSTED BY VIGNESH DHANASEKARAN

Rethink Robotics has been involved in some fun projects over the years. We’ve recently seen Baxter involved in studies about brain-controlled robots and how robots can help blind people navigate urban environments, just to name a couple.

Here’s a new project that doesn’t disappoint, either. Georgia Tech’s Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning Lab (RAIL) used a Sawyer cobot to hand out candy to trick or treaters. The cobot, set up at the house of Sonia Chernova, an assistant professor at GT’s School of Interactive Computing, gave out 1,000 pieces of candy in three hours.

According to RAIL, Sawyer, which wore a hat, cape and mask, was trained on what to do in less than one hour. The research team simply showed the robot the motions that were required. Normally, Sawyer would be able to detect the kids and their bags to drop in the candy using one of its cameras, but Chernova tells Robotics Trends that Halloween presents a special challenge

Chernova is already thinking about other fun ways to use Sawyer, saying that perhaps “we’ll have Sawyer carve a turkey on Thanksgiving or hang ornaments during the holidays.”

The (RAIL) lab is all about making robots more accessible to people, and this project accomplished just that.

Source : Robotictrends