A team of researchers has built a neural information system that is good enough and fast enough to balance a pencil in real time. If you think it’s an easy task, try it.
Building a machine to balance a pencil on its point used to be a high-level research topic – if you aren’t into AI I’d better add that this isn’t a joke. Think for a moment about the task. You have to move the point of balance around so as to bring the point back under the center of gravity of the pencil. The problem is also dynamic because you have to take account of draughts and vibrations that disturb the equilibrium. As a classical control problem it is also difficult because the equilibrium is unstable.
Maria Konovalenko 