The PhillieBot, a custom built robot, made its debut in the Phillies Brewers game at 12:45 pm by throwing out the first pitch during the Philadelphia Science Festival. The PhillieBot was designed and constructed during the last two months with a specific aim of throwing the first pitch on April 20th.
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It was developed as a part of a project at the GRASP lab of the University of Pennsylvania, who are the chief collaborators of the Philadelphia Science Festival inauguration. The Phillies and the Festival organizers have joined hands to develop a Science Day theme at the Ballpark for highlighting the baseball physics along with other science and technology aspects involved in the favorite pastime of the American population.
The PhillieBot with a height of 70 inches and a weight of 230 lbs was built by the members of General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) lab. Its main mobile platform is the Segway RMP 200; head is the sphere-gear pod from Tangent Robotics; while the arm is the WAM arm developed by Barrett Technologies. Jordan Brindza, who is the Staff Programmer Analyst handled the electronic interface and programming of the robot; while Jamie Gewirtz, the Staff Research Specialist took care of the component integration, mechanical design and manufacturing along with Christian Moore, the MEAM PhD. Vijay Kumar, who is the Deputy Dean for Education managed the oversight and initial design; while Rebecca Stein, the Associate Director of the Research and Educational Outreach did the Oversight.
The Science Festival is held from April 15th to April 28th to showcase the past, present and future of Science and Technology, mainly to inspire and motivate the next generation of students in science and engineering. 105 institutions are collaborating in the Festival, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, organized by the Franklin Institute and presented by the Dow Chemical Company.