This AI-Powered Robot Arm's Only Job Is To Find Waldo

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Hours of fun (and sometimes frustration) are reduced to seconds thanks to this AI-powered Robot arm, whose only job is to find Waldo.

Technology can be used to save the world. It can also take on the most benign tasks – like “finding Waldo” for example. RedPepper, a creative technology agency based out of Nashville and Atlanta, has built a robot that will find Waldo within just a few seconds. The robot uses a high-definition camera and machine learning AI to spot the red-striped traveller with 98% accuracy.

The robot works by taking a high-definition photo of a two-page “Where’s Waldo” set, and then analyses the picture using the OpenCV computer vision programming tools. The developers programmed the robot with Google’s Cloud AutoML machine learning tool to identify Waldo, based on a small collection of 107 Waldo head and body images.

A few smart people used all of their brain power to build an AI-powered robot arm whose only job is to spot “Where’s Waldo.” #IloveTech

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When the robot has spotted Waldo, a simple (and creepy looking) rubber hand drops down on the book to identify his exact location.

Thousands of sample images are usually needed to train an image recognition AI system. However, in the case of Waldo, a much smaller number of visuals were required because the machine only has to deal with cartoon drawings – which are much less complex than real human faces.

Sorry kids, but AI has just ruined one of your favourite games. #WhereisWaldo

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