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Hey, this is Annie here for WTBD,
and today we're at Homestead Miami Speedway in Florida
for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which
is a competition among some of the top robots
from across the world, testing to see how they perform
in various tasks related to disaster readiness.
So we're here to see some of the robots up close,
and to see them in action.
The robots themselves are from government, commercial,
and academic organizations, and are some of the bot
world's shining stars, like Valkyrie from NASA's Johnson
Space Center, the 6'2 humanoid destined for space.
Or the ape inspired RoboSimian, also from NASA,
which can operate on two legs or four.
Every one of these limbs is actually
very similar to a human limb, in that it
has the same sort of joints in it,
in terms of the joints in the shoulder, elbow, and wrist.
The difference is that on a RoboSimian limb,
those joints are all the way down,
distributed along the length of the robot.
And so that's a very different way
than you would find in a biological system,
and so RoboSimian, when it moves,
moves in a way that isn't always intuitive.
As for the challenges, they were designed
to replicate disaster response.
Navigating rocky terrain, opening a door
and walking through, twisting a valve, climbing a ladder.
But even something as small as opening a door
is extremely challenging, requiring months of practice,
and of course, watchful masters.
This robot is an ongoing development.
We have a lot more we would really
like to do to improves its performance.
Things like how we're going to approach grabbing a door handle
so that we can successfully push it down and get the door open,
and what's the best way to hold the door open
as the robot drives through doorway?
Things of that nature.
But it wasn't just about the competition.
Some special guests also made an appearance,
like this LS3 Legged Support System,
and Cheeta both from Boston Dynamics, the latest robotics
company to be snapped up by Google.
The showcase displayed the potential of robotics
to act in the crucial area of disaster response.
An exciting future for many, including the hundreds
of spectators cheering them on.
But the reality of robotics was also clear.
Failure is common, and success happens slowly, and only
with enormous support from humans.
So who won?
Schaft, a Japanese robot maker also owned
by Google, whose robot dominated the competition with 27
of 32 points.
The top eight teams will get DARPA funding
through the 2014 trials.
As always, you can let me know your reactions
on Twitter, Facebook, Vk or Google,
all @AnnieGaus, where you can also
send me show ideas or feedback.
Thank you for watching, and see you next time.
Oh, my god!