# Earth Rover Challenge: Gamifying AI and Robotics Research
## An “AI vs Humans” Competition
FrodoBots and Yield Guild Games have joined forces to introduce the AI vs. Human: Earth Rover Challenge. This partnership marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Embodied AI research and merges robotics and gaming to gamify AI and robotics research.
The Earth Rover Challenge is a first-of-its-kind competition where five AI teams and five human gamers will remotely control small-sized sidewalk robots to complete real-world navigation missions across multiple cities worldwide. Participating AI teams include research labs from renowned institutions such as UC Berkeley, UT Austin, Carnegie Mellon University, National University of Singapore, and Seoul National University. Human gamers will be selected from the top leaderboard of thousands of players who have previously played FrodoBots’ gaming title, Earth Rover.
The competition will take place during the prestigious IROS 2024 (IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) in Abu Dhabi. It aims to generate data sets that are useful for AI drivers to learn how to safely navigate the roads of the world. The game will engage human drivers in remote-controlled driving, while the data collected from these gaming sessions will be used to test and improve AI models.
## Gaming and the New Gig Economy
FrodoBots’ collaboration with Yield Guild Games advances the gaming-enabled gig economy initiated by the play-and-earn movement. Through this competition, the partners hope to showcase the potential of robotic gaming as a tool for large-scale teleoperation data collection.
Yield Guild Games, with its network of Web3 gamers, will bring players into the project, allowing them to compete for a chance to participate in the Abu Dhabi tournament. Incentives, such as Web3 tokens, will be offered to players based on the difficulty and usefulness of their drives. The competition will test the AI’s ability to outperform human drivers in various challenges, encouraging researchers to improve AI capabilities in real-world settings.
## Advancing AI Robotics Research
As part of the competition, FrodoBots has open-sourced a 2,000-hour driving dataset, the largest of its kind in the public domain. Participating AI teams will have access to FrodoBots’ global fleet of robots deployed in over a dozen cities worldwide, allowing for AI model evaluation under “in the wild” settings.
The Earth Rover Challenge provides a common set of diverse natural environments for researchers to deploy and evaluate competing approaches to robotics research. It also presents an opportunity to test the progress of autonomous AI models against human performance. The competition aims to address the key challenge of generalization in robot learning and push the boundaries of AI robotics research.
FrodoBots plans to continue hosting similar competitions with researchers while expanding the scope to include other robotic tasks. Their goal is to make meaningful contributions to Embodied AI research by crowdsourcing real-world datasets through their unique robotics gaming titles.
## Origins
FrodoBots started as a project during the pandemic to keep the founders occupied. They focused on developing a small, affordable self-driving robot that could collect valuable driving data. The founders realized the potential for merging gaming with robotics after deploying the robots and finding joy in remotely driving them. The company aims to create unique gaming experiences for players while contributing to Embodied AI research.
## Game Thinking
Initially, the founders of FrodoBots didn’t consider creating a game. However, they discovered the fun in driving the small RC cars remotely and decided to explore gaming possibilities. By incentivizing players with points and rewards, FrodoBots aims to engage gamers in the driving experience and leverage their contributions for AI research. The company plans to open-source tools for other game developers to build their own robotic games in the future.
## Taking Care of the Small RC Cars
FrodoBots’ small RC cars have been tested in over 20 cities by both AI and human drivers. While the robots are robust and can withstand some damage, incidents of misuse are rare. The cars travel at a slow speed of three kilometers per hour, minimizing the risk of physical harm to humans. Each location with a robot car has a designated individual responsible for picking up and charging the cars.
## The Humans vs. AI Competition
During the Earth Rover Challenge, five AI teams will compete against five human gamers in completing real-world navigation missions. The AI teams will try to replicate the human drivers’ actions and outperform them in various challenges. The competition aims to test the progress of AI models against human performance and encourage advancements in AI capabilities for real-world applications.
FrodoBots’ vision is to see robotic gaming take off and become a platform for driving innovation in AI and robotics. The company plans to explore game design possibilities, including augmented reality features and the integration of NFTs. By merging entertainment with robotics, FrodoBots aims to transform the gaming and AI robotics landscape.
In conclusion, the Earth Rover Challenge represents a groundbreaking initiative that gamifies AI and robotics research. By merging gaming and robotics, FrodoBots and Yield Guild Games aim to collect real-world datasets and advance the capabilities of AI drivers. Through innovative competitions and collaborations with researchers, the partners hope to push the boundaries of Embodied AI research and contribute to the development of autonomous AI models.