Robots like Flappy Bird, too!

Flappy Bird seemingly came out of nowhere, stormed the world, and was then pulled from the App store by its creator due to unforseen circumstances. Even though users can no longer download the game, players who had already uploaded it to their mobile devices before it was pulled can still revel in its rareness. Developers from China have invented a robot that is programmed to play Flappy Bird. This robot is totally unbeatable, and can take down any human’s score while playing the game. Using their skill and resilience, Chinese inventors Lin Yang and Shi Xuekun constructed this device from a variety of readily accessible parts.

According to their blog, Cloud Tea Studio, the robot is made up of the recognition system, control system, and the mechanical parts. The internal webcam that identifies the on-screen pipes in Flappy Bird’s path and the program written with OpenCV are all part of the recognition system. The PC and Arduino board control the movements of the robotic arm. The actuator arm of the hard disk drive and touch pen set up the mechanical part of the device.

The developers made the webcam function with low fps and high delay, using an open-loop model to determine where the bird was located on the screen. Right now, the green color of the pipes in the game is recognized by the onboard color filter. The duo will eventually alter this robotic prototype, and use Python data visualization to solidify further models of the robot. 

Story via Cloud Tea Studio