Gym Class Hero
Toyota is on a mission to automate the NBA — it’s built a six-foot-ten robot called Cue 3 that can nail three-pointers all day long.
In a demo for The Associated Press, Cue 3 successfully threw five shots from the three-point line out of eight attempts — which would be really good for a professional human player, and shows that robots are starting to handle more complex physical maneuvers than ever before.
Computer Vision
Cue 3 looks like it was draped in chainmail — Toyota told the AP that it deliberately wanted to avoid the sleek, white Apple Store-esque look seen in “iRobot” and other common renderings of humanoid robots.
Keeping with that image, Cue 3 doesn’t have a humanoid face. Rather, sensors in its torso create a 3D map of its surroundings that allow the robot to calculate how hard and high to toss the basketball.
