Poipoi Robot Nets Goldfish

Posted 14 Aug 2005 at 12:11 UTC by The Swirling Brain

What happens when you take a big robotic mechanical arm and give it a fish net and set it in front of a tank full of goldfish? The goldfish-grabbing bot, known as "Poipoi", was developed by researchers at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), in central Japan. On August 20th, Poipoi will compete in a goldfish catching competition that his held annually in Yamatokoriyama, a city that is famous for its goldfish-scooping contest. Poipoi is not expected to win, in fact it's much slower than even little children, but maybe someday robots will be faster than humans. The robot works by scanning a fish tank by an overhead camera. The robot's computer trys to track all the moving objects and predict where the fish will be and positions the net there to scoop them up. The robot can catch between 6 and 10 goldfish in 3 minutes.

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Children and Robot terrorize goldfish at contest, posted 17 Aug 2005 at 12:27 UTC by The Swirling Brain » (Master)

Did anyone think to ask the goldfish how they felt about this competition?

yeah well, posted 17 Aug 2005 at 16:42 UTC by dogsbody_d » (Master)

The goldfish said that they'd forgotten how they felt. Slimey, I'd have thought. ;)