Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Robot That Can Shoot Like Steph Curry

Engineered robot that play basketball

Have you ever seen a robot play basketball? In fact, it also never misses a single shot! Engineers in Japan built a robot that was seven foot and 220 pounds. The robot was based on basketball players Giannis Antetokounmpo and Anthony Davis because both of them are dominant NBA players that are 7 feet.

Tokyo researchers began working on the first version in 2017 and had developed a working prototype within six months. They named the robot the CUE. It used artificial intelligence to learn to make better shots over time .The robot has practiced shooting over 200,000 times and it’s still improving its shot accuracy. The robot was designed to hit every shot within the half range with a 100% of falling in. The robot can run and walk but it cannot jump because if it jumps the components of the robot will fall out. It works by calculating the perfect arch and it picks up the ball and shifts the arms to set the perfect angle to launch and when it finally launches it usually falls in. Despite the CUE being able to hit so many shots the robot cannot compete at the same level as the top tier athletes that play basketball.

The CUE team made many prototypes and have shown their tremendous progression over time. For example, the CUE 1 was only able to shoot free-throws and it couldn’t move .When they launched the CUE 2, it was able to shoot a three pointer and from further away it also stood on two legs and it started to look like a human. The CUE 4 improved and broke a couple world records. The latest model, The CUE 5 was based the the NBA player Steph Curry and it is programmed to be able to move ,shoot, and do crossovers and other ball handling tricks. The CUE team is still working on improving their robots. They are working on making the robot to be able to dunk and jump higher. Who knows, maybe robots in the future will take over the NBA players.