Cyber Woods, next golf champ?
The Putter Bot could change the concentration on robots playing soccer to golf.
(Credit: Crabfu.com)Will the next PGA champ need batteries?
I-Wei Huang, the same robot creator from Taiwan who won Best in Show in the 2008 RoboGames for his Swashbot, has another nifty little robot to show off.
The Putter Bot is a remote-controlled robot that can putt a golf ball. Huang has made a video (below) that shows it off quite well.
While the Putter Bot may just seem like another neat novelty, it could actually change robotics competitions.
Robot combat and soccer have so far been the chosen sports for robots. Going for putting a golf ball required the roboticist to implement a slightly different type of skill set for the robot. Demonstrating that this skill set is achievable could be a point of inspiration for others in the field.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
