TFIE003 ML03: Plastic Dinosaur plays ball

This is a story from the evolution of Plastic Dinosaur aka PD, a fictional robotic velociraptor that the authors, David Clement and Michael Barnard, are using to explore aspects of machine learning. Read the first articles in the series for the mechanical and neural net architecture of the robot. 

PD and its creators have been playing a game. The game is simple. PD is the goal keeper. The goal is a soccer net. The balls are tennis balls hurled from tennis ball machines. PD is rewarded when it intercepts a ball before it hits the net and gets a tiny punishment when a ball hits the net. Yes, punishing an AI dinosaur is going to go well.