We’ve seen loads of Chinese humanoid robot projects. There are surprisingly few from Japanese companies and even fewer from Japanese auto-makers. The Toyota CUE7 is here to break that drought. This mostly-humanoid creation — it has a wheeled base instead of legs — has a very specific skill set. It can play basketball.
That’s not strictly accurate, though. It can certainly shoot hoops, but the robot hasn’t yet demonstrated its skills on a packed court. The CUE7 was revealed on WELT, a German news program, on a (currently geo-blocked) YouTube video.
Taking your CUE7
Stuff found a way to watch the brief snippet, and we’re sure you will too. It shows Toyota’s creation looking suitably impressive in a basketball outfit. Dedicated hands allow the CUE7 to cup, catch, and dribble the ball before it lines up to take a shot at the basket. It, of course, makes the shot. There’s value in showing you mistakes, but impressions matter, so Toyota (and the German news outlet) isn’t likely to do that right now.
The upper body articulation is impressive. The wheeled base (which resembles a foldable Segway) could also work if you popped two teams into a match. Most of the limb movement is clean, though the CUE7 doesn’t seem ready for high-speed action just yet. Everything is a little too deliberate. A match could be convincingly choreographed, perhaps, but a single miss would wreck the entire set of programming. Toyota’s robot doesn’t seem like it’s reactive yet.
Remarkably, this isn’t Toyota’s first basketball ‘bot, though it’s easily the most impressive. The CUE3 and CUE5 have all given respectable performances on the court, even if they’re not ready for the NBA. Who knows, perhaps the CUE11 will be riding into its starting position atop one of Kawasaki’s Corleo quadrupeds. That would be several different sorts of awesome.
