Programmers from the University of Manitoba have managed to come up with a robot that can be said to be extremely Canadian, as it is capable of playing a game of hockey. Known as “Jennifer”, she has existed for less than a year, measuring a mere 58cm in height, but has already managed to skate on ice, manipulate the puck on the right kind of surface with her miniature hockey stick, as well as master forehand and backhand shots. The programmer of Jennifer, Chris Iverach-Brereton says, “To our knowledge, no one else has made a humanoid robot play hockey before, especially ice hockey.”
Why Jennifer? Well, she was named after Jennifer Botterill, a Canadian three-time Olympic gold medal hockey player. Jennifer herself costs $12,000 to develop, so to have a team of these move a puck around might be a rather costly endeavor if a hockey-playing robot league were to be implemented and launched. Would you pay money to watch a robot league match?
Filed in . Read more about Robot.