Comments on: Can Robots Use Chopsticks?

Question: Can Robots Use Chopsticks?

qbxk — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:09:25 -0800

Can robots use chopsticks?

Over lunch, I wondered if we've yet programmed a robot to use chopsticks. Could this be an Iron Turing Test?

Use of chopsticks on any object are acceptable, images or movies are preferred. Bonus points for anthropomorphic robots captured in the act of "eating".

By: iconomy

iconomy — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:19:42 -0800

This one [drawing] arose from rather a strange conversation I had with someone in physics class about robots using chopsticks. Since it was a robot it also had to simultaneously be murdering people. link

By: adamrice

adamrice — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:22:42 -0800

Googling "robot chopsticks" brought me to this scientific paper

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:56:05 -0800

Give a good reason to do this and someone will have a robotic arm feeding you rice in two months. In the meantime, forks are much simpler. Same reason most mobile robots use wheels instead of legs.

By: Krrrlson

Krrrlson — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:01:09 -0800

It's possible, and I'm sure it's been used in demos, as long as you're talking about a simple 1 or 2-degree of freedom chopstick-like gripper. But if you're thinking of an actual 5-fingered humanoid robotic hand using chopstics, that would be a very difficult task to accomplish.

(Does anyone else find it funny that "Turning Test" in the link redirects to Turing Test?)