MIT Engineers have developed a Robot which can learn and play the game of Jenga. To program a robot to play Jenga, traditional machine-learning schemes might require capturing everything that could possibly happen between a block, the robot, and the tower — an expensive computational task requiring data from thousands if not tens of thousands of block-extraction attempts.
Instead, the MIT researchers have developed a Tactile Learning System to make the Jenga Robot in data-efficient way. This tactile learning system can be used in applications beyond Jenga, especially in tasks that need careful physical interaction, including separating recyclable objects from landfill trash and assembling consumer products.
