{"id":1402,"date":"2010-04-21T09:58:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T14:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2020-08-17T17:57:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T17:57:31","slug":"human-beats-340-pound-robot-in-football-kick-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/2010\/04\/21\/human-beats-340-pound-robot-in-football-kick-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Beats 340-Pound Robot in Football Kick-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

from Wired.com<\/a><\/p>\n

by Priya Ganapati
\nApril 20, 2010<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s football team may have its share of detractors, but in a face-off against a robotic kicking machine, Niners placekicker Joe Nedney came out on top.<\/p>\n

Nedney was pitted against a 340-pound titanium robot called Ziggy. The event was billed as a man-vs.-machine battle in a leadup to Robogames, a robot competition event that will be held this weekend in San Mateo, California. Nedney kicked a football 45 yards while Ziggy, the robot, failed to clear the goalposts in two attempts at that distance. For a detailed rundown of the play, check out Wired Playbook\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n

Ziggy is no lightweight, though. A star in the robot world, it has a titanium-covered armor plate and has been a gold medal champion at Robogames for three years in a row. Ziggy\u2019s heft and power have made it one of the most powerful amateur robots built. For instance, in one video, Ziggy tosses a washing machine around as if it were a ball.<\/p>\n

In practice sessions, Ziggy has been able to kick a ball over 60 yards. But that was on a concrete surface with no headwind.<\/p>\n

The football field\u2019s grass surface meant that a major portion of the energy released by Ziggy\u2019s pneumatic arm ended up driving the robot deeper into the ground rather than providing thrust to the ball, explains the BotJunkie.com website.<\/p>\n

But all that\u2019s just excuses. For those keeping score, Nedney is the winner \u2014 and humans rule.<\/p>\n

For now, at least.<\/p>\n

See below for a video of the Nedney vs. Ziggy kick-off, plus a closer look at Ziggy.<\/p>\n

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from Wired.com by Priya Ganapati April 20, 2010 San Francisco\u2019s football team may have its share of detractors, but in a face-off against a robotic kicking machine, Niners placekicker Joe Nedney came out on top. Nedney was pitted against a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robot-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5462,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions\/5462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}