It seems like everyday I wake up there’s a new robot that’s far more talented than I am doing all sorts of cool shit. Granted, they’re usually only really good at one thing, but once they figure out how to combine the robot that can open doors with the one that can do backflips, we’re all fucked.
In today’s edition of Robots Who Are Better Than Me, here’s a humanoid robot which can shoot hoops with incredible accuracy called CUE. Lame name, yes, but the amazing thing about CUE is that he was made by 17 Toyota employees in their free time.
The incredible robot, which was “started from scratch,” uses artificial intelligence to sink shots with nothing but net. Incredibly, one of the developers told Japanese news agency, Asahi Shimbun, that the team had no previous experience with AI and learned about it on the internet.
CUE clocks in at a height of 6 feet 2 inches – shorter than the average NBA player, but with a two-pointer percentage score better than any of the pro Japanese players it shot off against in February of this year. You can suss out the monster in action below.
According to its developers, CUE was trained 200,000 times on all sorts of shots up to 12 feet from the hoop and can now hit close shots almost perfectly every time.
Apparently, old mate was modelled after the main character – Sakuragi Hanamichi – of a popular basketball anime series called Slam Dunk. I dunno about you, but I think the resemblance is unbelievable.
CUE is no doubt an incredible feat of AI and engineering, but he’s still stuck in one position for the moment. I’d say it’ll be a while before he can dribble a ball up the court, unless of course his shooting powers are coupled the that backflipping asshole…
