Inside a laboratory at Northeastern University, students and their professors are fine-tuning a complicated robot with big ambition. Professor Peter Whitney says students have spent the past 3 years designing and building “Huskey” and recently returned from an international robotics competition held in Miami called the XPrize Avatar Challenge.”Out of 30 teams we placed third and we’re actually the biggest ranked USA-based team,” said Whitney. Remember the movie “Avatar,” where humans could take control of other bodies through technology? That’s basically what the Northeastern team is trying to achieve with their robotic avatar. “Hollywood is always a century ahead of the technology, but you know I think we’re catching up,” said Professor Taskin Padir, who leads the project. “We wanted to deliver a lot of very intricate technology but in a very, very user-friendly package,” said Whitney. Padir says the world is still five to 10 years away from seeing so-called avatars in real-life operation, but he believes competitions like the XPrize are helping lead the way toward that future. “Technologies like this will find their place in the workplace. In the home and in common places,” he said. Northeastern has already won $130,000 in the early rounds of competition. There’s $5 million on the table for the winning team.
Inside a laboratory at Northeastern University, students and their professors are fine-tuning a complicated robot with big ambition.
Professor Peter Whitney says students have spent the past 3 years designing and building “Huskey” and recently returned from an international robotics competition held in Miami called the XPrize Avatar Challenge.
“Out of 30 teams we placed third and we’re actually the biggest ranked USA-based team,” said Whitney.
Remember the movie “Avatar,” where humans could take control of other bodies through technology? That’s basically what the Northeastern team is trying to achieve with their robotic avatar.
“Hollywood is always a century ahead of the technology, but you know I think we’re catching up,” said Professor Taskin Padir, who leads the project.
“We wanted to deliver a lot of very intricate technology but in a very, very user-friendly package,” said Whitney.
Padir says the world is still five to 10 years away from seeing so-called avatars in real-life operation, but he believes competitions like the XPrize are helping lead the way toward that future.
“Technologies like this will find their place in the workplace. In the home and in common places,” he said.
Northeastern has already won $130,000 in the early rounds of competition. There’s $5 million on the table for the winning team.
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