No matter how bizarre we think things are, there’s always something even more bizarre than we imagined.
In the latest challenge to our sanity, The Construct is organising what it says is a “humanoid sumo contest”. Yes, that’s what they said. Sumo, as in Japanese wrestling. With virtual humanoid robots. Within The Construct’s specially-created online environment.
As much as we admire The Construct’s technical achievements, we’re not sure if this apparently absurd idea is the right way to go about marketing what is actually a highly professional and capable cloud-based application for developing robots.
But be that as it may, The Construct has indeed set up a humanoid sumo contest, dojo and all, to see whose robot has the sheer girth and mid-riff elasticity to bounce opponents out of the ring.
With no apparent regard for what traditional, conservative, C-level executives might make of this preposterous prize fight between fat robots, The Construct says in a statement: “The Sumo Contest is a robotics contest developed in a simulated dojo, where two robots compete against each other fighting to get the opponent outside of the ring. You will have to program a robot using its sensors and actuators to get the other robot out of the ring. Contestants will fight against each other every day of the week, leading to a daily classification.”
The nominal value – the excuse for hosting this event – is the opportunity to learn about robotics, from how individual parts work, through simulations, to programming.
The overall winner will receive 1,000 years’ supply of doughnuts (not really) and a copy of WeBots Pro (yes, really).
