It's Soft Opening!

We have our robot arm displayed as well as the work from our interns (the tic-tac-toe Bioloids robotic arms and photos/slides/video of their semester with us) as well as the cardboard mock-up they made.

All of our work is on display: the robot arm, the intern program, and the grant proposal work I've done for future robotics projects at the ETC. And this website too!

We'll hopefully get some helpful feedback today. ^_^

Well, we're coming up to the end of the semester and the days of Final Presentations and Soft Opening.

Our robot painter paints! We've had successful tests of it copying people's drawings and are currently playtesting it with kids. There have been some minor errors, but it's all a part of the debugging process.

So debugging is underway. The mechies are hard at work fabricating the box and external parts to the installation, such as the front-panel interface an the stylus.

The kids really respond to the Lynxie well. I'm impressed at how patient they are when they watch the robot draw. They're fascinated by her. One of the things I found interesting was that at first, they drew whatever they wanted, then after a few times, they wanted to challenge the robot to draw something more complex, such as mixing colors or drawing more concrete images.

Hey again.

Lauren posted about the Toy Fair, but there was something else I wanted to mention about it that I thought was really cool.

We got to meet Eiji Kojima, US representative of Kokoro, a Japanese robotics company that specializes in lifelike humanoid robots. Ever see videos of the very pretty female robot receptionist? They built that.

Kojima sat and talked with us about the projects Kokoro has done, explaining some of the challenges they went through to get their "Act-droids" to seem lifelike. There has been a lot of research done in facial & body movement and skin texture. It was really impressive.

Personally though, I was more interested in their Kee-pon, the robot meant to foster communication with autistic kids. It was interesting hearing how the simplistic yellow robot could form a connection to people.

Hello. Theresa here, artist and one of the designers on the team.

We've been busily prototyping and running tests on various components so we can make further prototypes for our robotic painter. Charles and I have been working on the paint-distribution mechanism and deciding on paper and paint types. Charles has also been working on the robotic arm with Rebecca. Lauren and Rebecca have been working on paper distribution. And Lindsay, Lauren, and Betsy have been working on the touchscreen & brush which the children will be using. Also, Shashank and I have been working on the layout within the museum, creating rough diagrams and 3D models for visuals.

And of course, our producer, Laura, is busily running about with lots of tasks, including planning the arrival of the high school girls. ^_^

We've had a couple of guests this week come in and visit our project room, the most exciting of which was MTV. They were in love with Aibo, our studio pet, who showed us a new trick when he toppled over after looking up at one of the guests. Aibo is definitely hitting it off with people, kids and adults alike, and becoming more lovable the more he walks around our office. We've recently reset him to a newborn. Hopefully, this will give us a chance to have better communication and recognition with the robot.

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks that, due to our excitement and busy schedules, we've neglected to post about. I'll be backdating some posts in the next couple of days to fill in the missing gaps. Pictures will be included.

Some food for thought.
These are created by an artist named Theo Jansen using PVC Pipes. Some use
sails and others use air pressure collected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b694exl_oZo

Getting Girls Interested in Computers, an article from Rice University. What I found interesting were the 10 tips they suggested.

Ten Tips on Getting Girls Interested in Computers

1. Girls like to join clubs and take classes with their friends. A lone girl, who likes computers, is unlikely to join a computer club by herself. So if you sponsor a computer club, or teach computer science, invite girls to join clubs or classes as a group.
2. Girls need role models; they need to see women using computers competently and confidently. Check out computing magazines - almost all of the photographs are of men. On high school campuses, being a computer geek raises a male student's coolness
   factor; it doesn't have the same effect for girls. To offset this, when you invite speakers to classes or clubs, make sure you include women. Share information about women who are leaders in the field.
3. Make a conscious effort to encourage girls. Make them lab assistants. In class, call on girls more often, even if they don't volunteer. Ask them difficult questions that require higher order thinking. Try to find time for girls to be on machines when the boys are not around. (Then they won't be tempted to ask the gurus for help.) Choose a girl to help set up new hardware or software. Start a club designed to appeal to girls. Make sure they take the highest level of computing offered. Personally invite them to go to a computing contest. Don't let anyone deter them.
4. Inform them of what computer science as a career is really like. Girls may perceive it as a job spent all day in a cubicle with nothing but a machine.
5. When they ask, don't tell. Girls tend to ask for assistance when something won't work. Boys tend to try to figure it out. Encourage them to be daring with the machine. It's a real confidence booster when they succeed. Only step in if you really need to, and then try just a hint or help them to read the manual.
6. For young girls, purchase games that appeal to them. The more time a young child can spend on a computer, the more confident she will become with the machine.
7. In class, collaborate more; compete less. (I need to add a disclaimer here because I am so competitive myself.) In general, girls respond better to collaborative projects rather than competitive. Encourage collaborations, but be alert to boys dominating the group.
8. Girls like to see what computers can do for them. They see computers more as a tool and less as a toy. (Maybe that's a good thing, huh?) Let them type their papers on the computers, show them how to write web pages, or teach them to make a graph using a spreadsheet.
9. Put the home computer in a centralized location and give girls equal access with their brothers. Is it any wonder that girls aren't using the computer at home if it's in the boy's room?
10. Find out what percentage of the students in the highest level of computer science taught at your school (Computer Science II or AP Computer Science) is girls. If it's not at least 50%, make the school aware of the problem. Talk to counselors, parents, and other teachers to enlist their help in encouraging the girls in your school into the highest levels of computer science.