Jak, the blackjack robot

posted Apr 9th 2009 12:30pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: robots hacks

[Paul] sent in this Robotfest 2009 exhibition competition entry. This is Jak, the blackjack robot. This seems to be a convergence between a digital game of blackjack and a physical game. The robot scans each card as it deals them and feeds the data to a piece of software that tracks each players hand. The players select their next step on the screen and the robot responds appropriately. They have won 1st place in the Ontario competition and are now going to the international level. Jak wins a round in the video, but we didn’t see him celebrating. Come on guys, make him flash some lights or talk some trash.

Comments [8]

tagged: blackjack, cards, gamble, jak, robot

8 Responses to Jak, the blackjack robot

Jake says:

April 9, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Trash talking, like “shall we play a game?” and “all your base are belong to us!”

Great show – nice piece of equipment there guys!

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itwork4me says:

April 9, 2009 at 3:17 pm

Kinda like tapping mana from a magic deck…
I would add gesture recognition or a transducer to listen to the cards when someone is swiping the hand for a hit or putting the card down to fold. or use some magnetic ink based cards to differntiate a fold or hit by position on the table…

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Paul says:

April 9, 2009 at 3:30 pm

“i would add gesture recognition or a transducer to listen to the cards when someone is swiping the hand for a hit or putting the card down to fold. or use some magnetic ink based cards to differntiate a fold or hit by position on the table…”

tat would be so much cooler, but we built the robot in 2 months on a budget of $250, getting more sponsors soon though!

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amk says:

April 9, 2009 at 5:38 pm

@itwork4me: or you could build a robot with a positronic brain and name it Data. of course, if you did that, the robot would have an inexplicable inability to make a proper poker face, which seems like something robots would be good at. plus he would suck at whistling.

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kyle007 says:

April 10, 2009 at 9:10 am

That is incredible!!

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memals says:

April 14, 2009 at 5:22 am

I do not understand why the image processing was such a hurdle. Surely you just ensure that the cards are in a pixel tight clamp when presented to the web cam and the cards are consistently marked, same make of deck.
If their problem was not knowing the deck designs in advance, then they have failed, I am pretty sure I can find a deck or two that is so obscure in design that their would not read it.

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itwork4me says:

July 16, 2009 at 7:54 pm

i just read that guys reply…i got a good chuckle. anyways. i looked this up originally because as i was researching an old friend he had won a robo contest back in the day with a blackjack robot. its on the web ucla team. i think he does mars rover stuff now. keep the good work up guys.
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