Confused Bots

Since the first creation of a functioning robot, they have been created predominantly to simplify tasks performed by humans usually in a more effective approach. They are programmed or trained to perform either a task or a series of tasks that humans are now too ‘busy’ or inadequate to solve. The main focus nowadays in robotics is creating robots with that serve practical purposes to satisfy the general belief which is to effectively perform a useful task. The concept behind the ‘Confused Robot’ is that its’ main ‘reaction’ to the near environment will be incertitude. The Robot will be hesitant and puzzled regarding any tasks that will be presented with and will respond through either visual and/or auditory output corresponding to human behaviour when they find themselves ‘lost’ in a certain situation.

This first video presents an Arduino based robot incorporated with three Infra Red sensors. The ‘purpose’ of this Robot is not necessarily beneficial, displaying a behaviour that could be interpreted at the very least interesting. It does not appear to want to interact with anything around it, hesitating on finding or approaching obstacles, moving disoriented back and forth with slight movement forwards or backwards at times.

This second example presents a similar robot that appears to be Arduino based, which does not seem to be ‘aware’ of its surroundings. The movement has probably been implemented specifically to be perceived as unpredictable. In contrast to the first robot, this exemplary manages to achieve erratic movement, going in random directions without paying attention to any obstacles, bumping various times into everything in its way.

This is a virtual example of an AI that gets stuck into a loop when attempting to follow the Player that is hiding on top of the staircase. Pathfinding linked to the AI probably does not detect the Player when they are either crouching or above them. As a result, the AI seems to be in a disoriented repetitive state.