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Robot to throw first pitch for Phillies-Brewers game Wednesday

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With a starting rotation that features Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels, the Philadelphia Phillies seem like the last Major League Baseball team that would need a mechanically engineered pitcher on the mound.

But they possibly could be the first team to actually have one.

PhillieBot -- a one-armed, three-wheeled robot designed by engineers at the University of Pennsylvania -- will throw out the ceremonial first pitch Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park, when the Phillies face the Milwaukee Brewers on what is apparently Science Day.

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Penn engineers Jordan Brindza and Jamie Gewirtz put the robot together in less than two months, starting with a Segway then adding a robotic arm, a third will, a pneumatic cylinder (to power the pitch) and a computer brain (to change velocity and trajectory).

The robot’s arm rears back at the touch of a button, then moves toward home plate before a flick of its wrist helps shoot the ball forward.

PhillieBot sounds pretty cool but doesn’t appear to pose much of a threat to join the Phillies’ star-studded pitching rotation. After all, no one needs to press a button to start Hamels’ throwing motion. And chances are Halladay and Lee won’t be too concerned over the robot’s ability to throw a ball from 30 to 40 miles an hour (speeds which are said to be by design).

‘I know some teams are a little pitching-challenged,” Phillies groundskeeper Mike Boekholder told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But we certainly don’t have that problem.’

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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