Friday, March 30, 2012

RoBoBonobo: The future of human interaction with apes, or mad experiment success?

This is Robobonobo.
It was spearheaded head programmer Ken Schweller at a research center in Des Moines, Iowa called Great Ape Trust. Believe it or not, this robot(complete with cannon and realistic ape head) is controlled via a tablet app by an actual ape. The goal of the project is to design a platform that would allow caged apes to interact and communicate safely with visitors to the center while advancing both personal growth for the apes, and research on their communication and comprehensive abilities. Currently this program is tied directly to a Kickstarter effort to fund the app the apes use to control and communicate with the Robobonobo, so if you are interested in learning more about the cause and seeing it come to fruition, watch the video below, check out their Kickstarter page, and leave a donation if you can.

5 comments: