UTS robots wow IT girls

The innovation and enterprise research laboratory at UTS, which is sending a team of robots to Singapore for RoboCup 2010—the robot world cup—took some of its other robots for a spin at the Girl Geek Dinner, a networking event for women in IT and engineering in Sydney.

First up was a robotic puppy called Aibo, which had been programmed to interact with an orange ball. Professor Mary-Anne Williams, who heads up the lab, explained that Aibo has no self awareness, but Nao, his humanoid friend, does.

Attendees could ask Nao questions and were able to watch him move.

Nao will be part of the team heading to Singapore for the cup, where he will face competitors such as DARwin who also features in this clip. DARwin was created by Virginia Tech in the US who kindly provided ZDNet Australia with video footage.

DARwin has evolved significantly since he was first conceived. RoboCup's mission is to create full-sized, autonomous humanoid robots that by 2050 will be able to play a soccer match against the FIFA World Cup winners—and beat them!