BigBots: Pete Feher & Carnegie Science Center Design Team

ABB Basketball Arm

The ABB Basketball Arm exhibit was designed by the CSC Design Team as part of a robotics exhibition that has toured the United States and Canada since 1997. The design team is made up of a unique mix of industrial designers, artists, technologists, engineers and educators, who bring their talents to bear on the range of interactive exhibits CSC produces for the Pittsburgh audience and for other science centers and musems.

Pete Feher & Carnegie Science Center Design Team

Although Pittsburgh doesn’t have a professional basketball team, there is an all-star in the city that shoots free throws with 98 percent accuracy, enough to make the most celebrated NBA players a little green with envy. He “plays” for Carnegie Science Center and is actually, well, a robot. He’s better know as the ABB Basketball Arm, and in a previous life spent his days welding automobiles before being repurposed by the Carnegie Science Center. Visitors to the Science Center can try their hand at shooting baskets with the bright orange robot by adjusting the angle and velocity of the ball’s flight at an adjacent kiosk. Visitors quickly learn they are not ready for the NBA compared to the robotic arm. The basketball shooting robot was originally a part of the Science Center’s touring exhibition Robotics. Created in 1996, Robotics has visited more than 20 cities and has been experienced by over 3.5 million people around the country. The ABB arm returned to the Science Center in 2007 and will be part of the new RoboWorld exhibition opening at the Science Center in spring 2009. The ABB Basketball Arm is also one of the “BigBot” attractions for Robot 250.