Internet Arm Wrestling Challenge: 'We can't do that with a robot, because it will crush your hand'

So said Stephen Uzzo, project manager for technology at the New York Hall of Science in Queens.

He was quoted in Henry Fountain's fascinating story in the December 2 New York Times about the rise of the robot arm wrestler in cities nationwide.

Visitors to science museums in New York, Anchorage, Des Moines, San Jose, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania can now face off with challengers ready to throw down at either their own location or any of the other museums.

Read the story.

With Long-Distance Arm-to-Arm Combat, the Internet Gets Physical

At most interactive museum exhibits, technology links people with information.

But it can also take interactivity a step further, linking people with people - so they can arm wrestle.

In the Internet Arm Wrestling Challenge, visitors to science museums in New York, Anchorage, Des Moines, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and San Jose, California, are paired off over the Internet.

Each competitor sits on a stool, grabs a mechanical arm and pushes.

The exertions are measured and sent to an identical exhibit at another museum, where a motor exerts equivalent force on a mechanical arm that the opponent is pushing against.

It's a simple idea, but getting it to work took several years and about $150,000 in development money before it was officially unveiled last month.

"The problem is on a level of scope and details," said Matt Browning, a software developer with the firm MediaBite who worked on the display with Lynch Exhibits of Burlington, New Jersey, and staff members of the New York Hall of Science in Queens.

"We definitely fine-tuned the experience to make it feel organic," Mr. Browning said.

The project began about three years ago when Hall of Science officials were planning an exhibit on networks to be part of an expansion of the museum.

"The idea was, how do you connect people at two institutions in a meaningful way?" said Eric Siegel, project director of the network exhibit, called Connections.

"What could they do together that would be engaging for them?"

The original concept, Mr. Siegel said, was of a "window between two museums," so a video connection was always envisaged.

The current setup uses simple Webcams at each location so competitors can eyeball each other.

"Once you put the video into the game, it amplifies the experience," he said.

But the relatively large amount of video data also creates complications.

The developers have had problems with firewalls and with keeping the video synchronized with the action.

The arm-wrestling data is, by contrast, rather streamlined.

The arm is attached to a shaft that is connected to a servo motor that can be precisely controlled; a rotary load cell on the shaft measures the direction and amount of the force applied by a contestant eight times per second.

The analog signal is digitized and sent in packets over the Internet.

At the opponent's museum, the signal is converted back to activate the servo motor that controls the arm.

The process occurs in both directions.

"It's the equivalent of having one end couple to the other electrically, but the Internet is in between," said Stephen Uzzo, project manager for technology at the Hall of Science.

One feature of the system is that it allows two people to arm wrestle even if one is right-handed and the other left-handed. (The Hall of Science has two stations, back to back, so that if no one is available elsewhere, visitors to the museum can wrestle each other.)

Mr. Uzzo said a large part of the development process involved safety.

"There was a lot of discussion about how fast we can make the arm move," he said.

"In a real arm wrestle," he added, "you can reach a point where one player can slam the other down. It's obvious we can't do that with a robot, because it will crush your hand. We had to give up a little bit of the realism."




December 6, 2004 at 03:01 PM | Permalink




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