By Jung Joo-ri and Yoon Jihye
Video = Park Jang-bhin
Icheon l March 8, 2018
A high-tech curling match recently took place between a human team and a specially designed curling robot.
The Ministry of Science and ICT hosted the match between an up-and-coming men’s curling team and the robot, appropriately named Curly, at the Curling Center of Korea Paralympic Committee (KPC) Icheon Training Center on March 8. The robot was developed by some 60 researchers from eight institutions, including Korea University and the Ulsan National Institute of Science andTechnology (UNIST).
A stone thrown by Curly the curling robot heads into the house during a match against a human team, at a national curling center in Icheon on March 8. (Ministry of Science and ICT)
In the first ever curling match in the world against a robot, Curly played two games against a high school team from the Chuncheon Mechanical and Technological High School in Gangwon-do Province.
In the first game, Curly won 1:0. The robot figured out the rules in general, just as a human would, and threw a series of great take outs to score.
In the second game, the high school team won 3:0. The human team only used its sweeping skills and scored one point in the first end, and won the second end as well with two points, in which both teams only threw their stones without sweeping.
The engineers in charge of Curly check the stadium and ice conditions during a preliminary round for 30 minutes before the main game. An engineer examines the practice throws using the software program CurlBrain. (Park Jang-bhin)
However, the robot showed better performance than expected. This was possible as it has collected data and studied it all in-depth. Curly used the 1,321 records of the strategy used in international curling games and built its game data base of 160,000 throws based on date from between 2014 and 2017. Nevertheless, uncertainty arose from the subtle difference in temperature and humidity at the venue, giving the high school team victory.
Professor Lee Seong-whan of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering at Korea University, part of the research team, said, “A perfect throw is practically impossible because of various problems like ice conditions. Once a sweeper robot is developed to reduce errors as much as possible, in autumn this year, accuracy concerning draws, take-outs and other strategy building plans is expected to be much greater.”
Kim Jae-won, who played on the high school team, said, “I thought the game against a robot would be more boring than against humans, but it was rather exciting. Practicing with robots like Curly will help improve our skills.”
Curly was developed with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT in April last year. The research team aims to build a sweeping robot and raise its throwing skills to a professional level by December.
etoilejr@korea.kr
