Robot to carry Olympic flame?

Who would have actually thought that we could actually contemplate the possibility of seeing a robot carry the Olympic flame? Yes sir, it seems that this might actually happen next year in order to celebrate Turing’s 100th birthday. While there are 80,000 “inspirational torchbearers” who will carry the flame during the Olympic Torch Relay, only one (just like the Highlander) will prevail eventually – and next year, it might be a torch-bearing robot.

James Law, a computer scientist over at Aberystwyth University, will be rooting for the iCub robot that you see on the right to be one of the torchbearers for London 2012. What’s so special about the iCub? Well, it was specially built to learn from real-world activities in the same way as that of a toddler. Since next year is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of the founder of computer science, Alan Turing, to have the iCub being a torchbearer is definitely a unique way to remember Alan Turing.

Which robot do you think is different worthy to carry the Olympic torch apart from iCub?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: olympics, Robot, Robotics, Robots