Playing Pool with a Robot, which is totally not a euphemism

Needs to be faster, though. Like that pancake picker. Also it should have a fedora, a cigar, and be playing Bad to the Bone in a loop.

May I recommend that robotics researchers not do their own voiceovers? This is like "a face made for radio" but different.

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9 Responses:

  1. Owen says:

    Feed that robot 3 beers and see how well it does... Also, the best song to play pool to is clearly "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrjSqK7xPLE

  2. J says:

    Give him some slack, this is a german student doing his master's thesis. It's quite OK considering that English is not his native language and that he seems a bit nervous. With more experience of public speaking he will be fine.

    (BTW, I think you meant "a voice for silent movies".)

    • jwz says:

      I meant what I said. It's a common phrase.

      And if you're bad at narrating, you shouldn't narrate. How hard is that? And if you haven't noticed that the narration in robot videos is always this bad, then I guess you haven't watched as many robot videos as I have.

      • Dr. Eggroll says:

        I was expecting it to be bad just from low audio production values. Though it feels like it could be someone giving a presentation on Linux. If you're not a "people person" then robots might be your calling, but why mess it up with robots that do barroom leisure activities.

  3. Scott says:

    It feels like cheating when they use a ceiling mounted camera.

  4. cthulhu says:

    At about 2:15 or so when it was shooting the striped ball (looked like the 12-ball to me) it bumped a solid ball (looked like the 2-ball to me) when it was setting up the shot. CHEATER!

    • Otto says:

      Meh. Perfectly acceptable in bar rules. I did notice the two shots at the end failed though. It scratched and then got one on the edge of the hole.

  5. Jon says:

    Petter Fosberg did a little better - and it's almost robotics.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBOQ6RMk6aw

    • Dr. Eggroll says:

      Similar flatness, and he's made a Segway clone that he's trying to pass off as a substitute for dancing. The only way to make that presentation successful is if you beat Dean Kamen to the prototype stage, or it's for your teacher and the assignment was clone an existing technology. Otherwise in addition to passion there's some other information he left out of the video. You don't have to be Billy Mays, or even the Shamwow guy, but you can't assume that your project is completely self-evident based only on what you already know.