Soccer is an amazing
feat of the human body.
You use your eyes to figure
out where the ball is.
You use your brain to figure out
where you're going to move to,
and you use your body to
move there and kick the ball.
It's really interesting
to try to do
all those things with a robot.
So, 212 Intro to Robotics is
all about how robots work.
This is what a motor is.
This is what a mechanism is.
So this kind of an important
transformation, and it
happens all the time.
People try to bring all the
tools and stuff that they learn
in class into this
particular project,
and that is an exciting process.
It's definitely my
favorite class right now.
We're working on making
a goalie robot that
can quickly maneuver the arm
around in order to stop a ball.
Our whole goal is just
being able to track a soccer
ball as it comes into the
robot, and then actually be
able to repeatedly kick it.
And these are all challenging
problems to look at.
There's the kinematics,
the dynamics, the vision,
and all of this computation,
it has to be done in real time.
So it's great, yeah.
So what do we do about the top
corner or the bottom corner?
Because then we've got to
bring this all the way out.
It's a good combination of
brainstorming and throwing
out ideas and doing
the calculations.
We have a controls
team, which is basically
in charge of saying,
is this feasible
using the sensors and the
information that we have?
We have a manufacturing
team, which
will be in charge of making it.
Another member of my team is
focusing on computer vision,
so taking input from
the different cameras
and then using that
to try and figure out
the trajectory of the ball.
You don't know how much
control and how much processing
it takes to just move
your leg, until you
try to build a robotic leg.
Doesn't it give us enough mass
to get the momentum we want?
You don't know how much
it takes for your mind
to just move your
arm in 3D space,
until you have to build
an arm to block a ball.
We're just getting started,
so let's see how it goes.
I'd be dishonest if
I didn't say it's
a little panicky right now.
It's a very aggressive timeline.
We're going to have to put our
heads down a little bit here
and just grind for a couple days
and make sure we have something
at the end of the
day that actually
works on competition night.
The harder we want to
kick, the more likely
our robot leg is to break.
[LAUGHTER]
Everyone's feeling the
pressure and the time crunch
in order to get
this thing to work,
but also everyone's
very motivated to do it.
Even though we might all be able
to get our individual pieces
together, it's being able
to do that in real time
with a real soccer ball.
I think we can kick the ball.
I think we can see the
ball, react to the ball.
I do think we'll
be able to do it.
I think we can do it.
[CHEERING]
I think MIT, especially, is one
of those places that says, oh,
you want to learn something?
I'm going to throw
you in the deep end
and make you fail a little
bit, but you're definitely
going to come out of
it a better engineer.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
At the end of the
day, robotics is
one of the coolest things any
mechanical engineer can learn.
[INAUDIBLE]
