Japan's Schaft dominates rescue robot competition (VIDEO)

GlobalPost

A Japanese robot-maker owned by Google dominated a robot challenge in Florida over the weekend, proving that the country is still a world leader in fast-growing technology.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robotics Challenge in Florida brought together 15 teams from around the world to show off their prowess in creating rescue robots.

The challenge tested the robots' ability to complete eight tasks, such as driving a car, walking on difficult terrain, clearing debris and climbing a ladder.

The robots were being tested for their ability to conduct disaster relief operations.

Teams included NASA, MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Worcester Polytechnic, among other leading robot makers and researchers.

Japan's Team Schaft, which was recently acquired by Google, created a two-legged, humanoid robot won 27 out of a possible 32 points, made more impressive by the fact that two of the teams did not score a single point.

"They started very, very intense efforts immediately after being selected," Gill Pratt, a DARPA program manager told Computerworld about the Japanese team.

"They had begun and been much more serious about their efforts sooner than anyone else we saw. That's showing this weekend. They did their homework."

IHMC Robotics, from Florida's Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, came in second with 20 points, while Carnegie Mellon came in third.

Boston Dynamics, which was also recently bought by Google, helped create both robots (called "Atlas") that won second and fourth place.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is a part of the US Defense Department and winners will have a chance to win contracts and money.

The competition will have a third round in late 2014.

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