"Punching Pro" Sparring Robot.

**punchingpro** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 9:56am

You are absolutly right.
I have begun trials on using this approach. But havn't finnished the auto mechanism.

Its true I have no professional boxing training so people are right to be critical about boxing technique, because I cant say with 100% certanty that it does improve technique in professional boxing skills, I have amended my website to reflect this and hope to find more experienced people to help with developement. Thank you and thank's to Bullshido for this opportunity. and all the help I have recieved.

Kris Tressider. The internet is a great wealth of knowledge.

**Sang** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 10:01am

Humble post, welcome to Bullshido.

I still think the concept is 50 years too soon but it'd be cool if you proved me wrong.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 11:08am

Hang in there PunchingPro, if anything take the feedback from Bullshido as fire-testing of your ideas...more valuable than not.

Newsflash: Pro boxers don't build robots. If they did, we'd have a great product. It's up to the "pro" boxers and fighters to help inform the engineers who actually have the creativity and heart to bravely go forward and BUILD IT!

If you build it...they will come. When they come and smash your design to pieces, you keep what they couldn't break and that becomes the core of the next iteration.

Ignore the "give up"s. Those people typically have no vision whatsoever and are stuck in their ways.

Take the "have you thought of this?" from this site as some of the best internet feedback you could get.

Relish in the fact that a lot of progressive thinking people can see where this type of project could lead.

Science fiction is only fiction for a time, after all.

50 years? With the current technology...I'd wager less than ten.

**dwkfym** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 12:27pm

First of all, as the machine is in the youtube video, it isn't conducive for improving boxing technique at any level. Please don't get the idea that its helpful to everyone who is not a pro or a super advanced amatuer. Beginners will see the same benefit in that machine as they will with a single mitt taped to a wall.

However, I think you can make this useful for training some sort of minimal set of skills. Get the robot standing more sideways. Get its guard up (sounds like you're already working on it). That way, at least it will train the user to move to the outside of the punches.

Without some sort of sensory input and a feedback system based on that input, I don't think the machine will be of much use at any level.

***WhiteShark*** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 12:52pm

The mit holding idea is the best thing in this thread. It wouldn't be hard IMO to make a robot that is a better pad holder than the average newb in kickboxing class.

**cosmichearse** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 1:15pm

All you got to do is mechanize the B.A.S and give it "el guapos" personality and you got it.

ps. good luck with the design.

**dwkfym** · Posted On: 4/18/2011 11:39pm

The more I think about it, the more this machine becomes similar to a wall mounted bag with a speaker and pre marked targets.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 4/19/2011 12:12am

Originally Posted by dwkfym

The more I think about it, the more this machine becomes similar to a wall mounted bag with a speaker and pre marked targets.

This could be made to rotate 360 degrees intelligently and eventually move in an enclosed space too. Complex patterns can be programmed too, especially with the addition of motion capture, which is now cheap and easy as far as hardware/programming is concerned.

**dwkfym** · Posted On: 4/19/2011 12:31am

Yeah, I've thought about the true benefits of having an experienced partner hold pads for you and I am not sure how it will be replicated. But I do think you could make a mobile machine with preset targets, but then the benefit will only be that you get to chase the targets now.

Basically, holding pads is actually a very small part of the work a padholder must do to, and I'm not sure how it will be replicated. The best you could do is make it pre-programmable.

**tao.jonez** · Posted On: 4/19/2011 8:39am

Not at all dwk - it would be fairly easy with accelerometers (or some such) to measure speed or power output of the person training.

This wouldn't be to replace an experienced pad-holder, nor a coach. This would be like a heavy bag - a tool that you use to work on specific goals. Only it would be interactive and offer measurable feedback.

I can see beginners using it for fun and some tiny degree of learning, but not without a coach. More experienced boxers could use it as well, simply for the output measurements.

That's my idea anyway. The punch-bot just doesn't offer enough realistic movement (yet) to be helpful.