That Robot Seal Can Ball

Five roboticists at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan have trained an actuated arm to play basketball.  That alone wasn’t worth a mention here until they skinned a toy seal and had the manipulator arm wear it like a Snuggie.  So creepy.  This may be a ploy by the Baby Seal Clubbers lobby (totally a real thing), because seeing that metal claw popping out of a stuffed seal’s mouth makes me want to club a seal immediately.

The roboticists say the robot seal sinks the ball 99% of the time, and we’re guessing it kills humans the other 1% of the time.  Hit the jump for the video which has earned the hoops-playing robot seal the official GammaSquad Seal of AAAAAAAAAAAA!pproval.

[Video via the aptly-named IEEE, which is also the sound I made watching this.]