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Dartmouth's robotic tackling dummy is a mechanized Weeble-Wobble
Robots are replacing humans in a lot of roles. At Dartmouth, a robot may soon replace tackling dummies during football practice. Designed by engineering students at the Ivy League school, Mobile Virtual Player (MVP -- yes, really) gives training sessions a more realistic feel over those regular ol' stationary bags. It's also looking to reduce the risk of head and neck injuries. What's more, it's remote controlled. There's still work to be done, though, as the team behind the MVP is working to make the controls easier for coaches to use and the robot's maneuvers more realistic. Hopefully they're also installing a kill switch, so when the tech gets fed up, it doesn't start wrecking fools on the gridiron.
