An air hockey playing robot, left, is featured in the Carnegie Science Center's new exhibit, "roboworld." Air Hockeybot beats human opponents about 90 percent of the time.

PITTSBURGH — Visitors to Carnegie Science Center's "roboworld" exhibition, opening Saturday, can experience the challenge of competing against artificial intelligence in several exhibits, including a one-of-a-kind air hockey playing robot.

Developed by Nuvation, an embedded electronic design services company based in San Jose, Calif., the Air Hockeybot utilizes an industrial robot arm powered by a standard personal computer and application specific software to challenge human opponents on a regulation-size air hockey table.

An array of high power LEDs and a high performance vision system, positioned above the table, tracks the puck's position and relays coordinates to the robot's processor every 10 milliseconds, allowing the robot to predict the puck's location upwards of three bounces in the future.

The algorithms by which the robot plays are modeled after strategies employed by professional air hockey players.

Artificial intelligence has proven itself superior to humans in several competitions over the past decades, from the Polaris AI system defeat of several poker champions to IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer topping of the world's number one chess player, Gary Kasparov, in 1997.

Air Hockeybot is just one part of the larger "roboworld" exhibition opening Saturday.

The world's largest and most comprehensive permanent robotics exhibition, "roboworld" was developed over the past several years by Science Center staff in cooperation with numerous universities and colleges and corporations involved in robotics research.

The exhibit explores through dozens of hands-on, interactive exhibits the concepts of robotic sensing, thinking, and acting and is home to the Robot Hall of Fame.

The Science Center is regularly open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays; closed holidays.

General admission is $14 for adults and $10 for senior citizens age 62 and older and children 3 to 12. Parking is $3. Omnimax Theater is an extra fee.

Call 412-237-3400 or visit the Web site, www.carnegiesciencecenter.org.