电子商务巨头寻求机器人员工

E-commerce giant Amazon has announced that it's hiring six-thousand more workers at its distribution centers across the U.S.. Business may be good for Amazon, but it's still looking for ways to get more products to its customers even faster. So the company has also started looking for some highly skilled robots.

Thirty teams from all over the world with the same goal: To have their robot pick up the most objects from a stack of shelves, then drop them into a bin within 20 minutes.

A contest held for the first time to solve a real-world issue at Amazon's warehouses. Because right now, Amazon's Kiva robots can only complete the first stage of filling customer orders: moving entire shelves full of goods. Workers are still needed to pick out the individual items desired and prepare them for shipping.

"We thought that the thing that would be most adaptive to all products, all shapes, would be like humans do. Humans can pick up everything with our hands. A robot should be able to use fingers to pick it up as well," said David Coleman, graduate student, University of Colorado.

Amazon paid travel and hotel expenses for the teams taking part in the challenge, a sign of how important advances in robotics are to helping its business

Amazon spent US$775 million when it bought Kiva in 2012. Kiva engineers served as judges for this event - with US$26,000 in total prize money at stake.

"We evaluate based on how items are picked. Were they picked successfully or were they dropped. It's really challenging to pick up something that might have clear plastic over it in terms of the vision of it versus something that might be a different shape and not clear," said Kelly Cheeseman, Amazon spokesperson.

Tasks that may sound simple, but are much more difficult for robots to execute without human intervention. University of Colorado's PickNik robot failed to pick up even one item, but team members still enjoyed their experience.

"This actually brought four or five of us together almost on a daily basis. And it was fun working with people, also frustrating at times, but it was nice working with people on the same project and having this international community of collaboration going on," David Coleman said. 

And for Amazon, a chance to learn more from the talented minds coming up in the field of robotics.

"It's always fun to continue to invent and create and think of new ways that we can increase the technology within our buildings," the spokesperson said.

The company promises it will hold similar competitions in the future.