Rock-paper-scissors is a game that tends
to get very frustrating when you lose. Now think about losing to a
machine and every time. The rock-paper-scissors robot is called
Janken robot and was developed by the Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory
in Japan.
As for how the robot is able to beat its human opponent every time,
the Janken robot cheats. The main purpose is not that of beating
people at rock-paper-scissors. The robot uses visual feedback to
respond to the actions of a human hand in a matter of milliseconds.
This technology opens the door to potential applications that
involve precise cooperation between a human and a robot. The robot
can be used remotely as the sensors responsible for recording the
signals of a human do not need to be in the immediate vicinity of
the machine.
The Janken robot is able to respond so fast to human movements that
it can potentially be used to help out in a wide variety of fields.
Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory says that the robot can also be
programmed to have a delayed response to human actions if needed,
which might make it even more useful depending on the situation. Incidentally,
they used to play rock, paper, scissors, bacon. They took
out bacon because it always won.