Robot of the Week: OptoFidelity

Angry Birds Loading Screen

Angry Birds is an app on the Android and iPhone market right now where your objective is to launch birds, using a slingshot, into structures to knock them down and subsequently destroy the evil green pigs. The app has hit the market like wildfire and its incredibly addictive (but in a healthy way).

According to an article I read at TechCrunch, a company by the name of OptoFidelity has created a robot which can not only manage to play Angry Birds, but outplay some of the best human players. Now, I'm not sure that this is 100% legitimate and after researching a little bit onto the only actual trustworthy source, their website, I've come to two conclusions:
1. I can not speak Finnish
2. Yes this is 100% legit (which was determined after a little help from Google Chrome's translater)

After reading through an article on OptoFidelity's website here, it seems that they pulled this off with equipment they already had laying around. OptoFidelity does a lot of automated touch screen testing with their robots. They simply wired the robot to be able to use the touch screen precisely enough to play Angry Birds. They had this to say about the task,

"The hardest game of the robot's development Tuulkarin was to play the game man power levels through the full three-star result. Programming the robot's task then was then already relatively easy."

The video below shows an advertisement for OptoFidelity where their automated touch screen robot was able to outplay one of Finland's fastest Angry Birds players. Check it out!



Credit to:
TechCrunch's article: Click Here if You've Never Seen a Robot Play Angry Birds Before (Videos)
OptoFidelity's article: Can match the angry birds-SM-race winner OptoFideltyn robot? (copied word for word from translated page)