FrodoBots

Gamers who drive a robot down a street they have never visited are, in FrodoBots' plan, the people who will teach machines to move through the real world. The company, which trades as FrodoBots AI, argues that embodied AI "will be solved by gamers" and builds games around tele-operated robots so that player actions become training data.

Earth Rovers, a scavenger hunt on real pavements

Earth Rovers are small sidewalk robots that connect through a 4G SIM card and are controlled over the internet from a game controller, wheel or keyboard, so the player and the robot can be on opposite sides of the world. The public beta game is described as Mario Kart in real life, played as a global scavenger hunt. Drives earn FrodoBot Points, which scale with distance driven multiplied by a difficulty score from 1 to 10 based on terrain and surroundings, and points count when more than half of a continuous drive is outdoors with GPS signal. The robots have remotely switched headlights, and the company says they cope with rain and snow and have been tested in more than ten cities. A school edition, Earth Rovers School, is listed separately, and a second game, ET Fugi, is listed under Play.

Octo Arms and robotic manipulation

Octo Arms covers manipulation rather than navigation. Players control robotic arms through low-cost tele-operation controllers and complete 3D puzzles and competitions. The site labels this title as invite only and coming soon, with a waitlist.

Datasets, tokens and an open research stance

FrodoBots says both games double as dataset collection and as a testing ground where AI researchers can deploy their navigation or manipulation models. A public dataset called FrodoBots-2K is linked from the site, along with an AI competition. The company says it wants to open source much of its work, including datasets, hardware designs and a robot control SDK, and describes a token-incentivised rollout in which robot owners share in the network's rewards. The GenkiBomb Foundation is named as the vehicle for its embodied AI research mission.

Key facts

Company: FrodoBots AI Co-founder: Michael Cho Products: Earth Rovers, Earth Rovers School, Octo Arms (coming soon), ET Fugi Robot connectivity: 4G SIM, controlled over the internet Dataset: FrodoBots-2K Pages read: carry a 2024 copyright notice, and the site lists two different robot starting prices, so none is repeated here Headquarters: not stated on the pages read