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Original
article: Your Wish Is The Tele-Actor's Command (Lab
Notes, October 2001)
http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/0801yourwish.html
Nobody likes to wait in line when they're online. But
how do you eliminate the queue when a multitude of users
want to remotely control a single device on the Internet?
Professor Ken Goldberg--who holds a joint appointment in
the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) and Industrial Engineering and Operations
Research (IEOR)--and his students are developing novel
systems for collaborative control, bringing a bit of democracy
to Web-based telepresence systems. Their latest experiment
in "collaborative telepresence" is Tele-Twister,
a modernized version of the classic board game with teams
of online participants "controlling" the moves
of human players.
Twister
Gets A Telepresence Twist
by Angela Privin
IEOR professor Ken Goldberg has put on new twist on Twister.
Tele-Twister, his cyber version of the '60s party
game gives it a chess-like element while allowing him to
collect data for his teleactor project.
Every Friday, anyone with Internet access can play a lunchtime
game of Tele-Twister by logging onto www.tele-actor.net/tele-twister and strategically directing the moves of two actors. The
real-time video of the game is then streamed onto the site.
Twister is played by placing hands and feet on the colored
circles of a Twister board. The objective is to stay standing
while your opponents topple from their precarious, pretzel-like
pose. While the spin of a dial determines the next move
in Twister, Tele-Twister relies on strategy and cooperation
between team players to plot the course of a game.
While only two people can physically play the game, an
unlimited number of players can divide into two teams and
direct the action.
The project falls under the scope of Goldberg's collaborative
telerobot research project. The idea is to use consensus
to allow many Internet users to control one object simultaneously.
The data his research group collects from each game help
them answer questions on how large groups achieve coordinated
control. Each game of Tele-Twister not only tests the system's
technical capabilities but also compiles valuable statistics
on group interaction.
The large-scale goal of the project
is to produce an interactive, cooperative, Internet-based
program that allows a group of students to have a hands-on,
engaging and active educational experience.
"Students learn science better when they are doing
things versus listening to lectures. We want to introduce
an element
of action and competition to the learning process to engage
them,” says Goldberg.
The element of competition in Tele-Twister extends beyond
team victory by also scoring individual performance. Points
are given for being the first to pick the consensus move.
This scoring system rewards leadership, strategy, and collaboration.
"It's similar to chess because you must think
ahead to win, but you also need to collaborate with your
fellow
team members,” says Goldberg.
Along with sponsorship from the National Science Foundation
and Berkeley's Center for Information Technology
Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), Tele-Twister
has garnered funding from Intel, which is interested in
its entertainment value.
IEOR student Dezhen Song is pursuing a Ph.D. studying the
mathematical theory and systems design behind Tele-Twister
and related projects. He and Goldberg work closely with
other graduate students, such as Jane McGonigal of performance
studies, an expert in interactive games, and undergrad
In Yong Song, an EECS senior who engineered the advanced
Java applet that coordinates user interactions.
"We are bridging the gap between technology and reality
and figuring out how to create a cooperative tele-presence
environment using technology, like the Internet, that is
accessible to the average student,” says Dezhen Song.
Ken
Goldberg's
home page
"Sharing
A Vision" by David Pescovitz (Lab
Notes, June/July 2003)
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IEOR professor Ken Goldberg's Tele-Twister, is a cyber version
of the '60s party
game
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