Talking robots assist graduate research

It’s not every day that people get to see a talking, moving robot. But many had the chance to do so during the Robotics Open House on Friday.

People packed into the open house on the eighth floor of Eigenmann Hall, where the cognitive science offices are located. The robots were research projects on cognitive science created by graduate students.

One of the research groups used the robots to test embodied cognitive science while the other group used the project to study
human and robot interactions.

The robots displayed weren’t just the typical human-shaped ones people might expect after watching science-fiction movies.

Children crowded around two robots that looked like little green-and-yellow dinosaur toys. They moved their legs and tails and were able to hold fake leaves in their mouths to look like they were eating.

Randall Beer, one of the event coordinators, was pleased with the children’s reactions.

“It’s fun to see a lot of the kids. They really enjoy it,” Beer said. “It’s going really well.”

Mike Brady is working on a robot with artificial vocal cords. The robot makes noises
that sound like vowels. It will eventually be able to mimic the speech patterns of recordings of itself and the voices of the humans around.

IU graduate student Jenett Tillotson’s robot was an experiment in optic flow. It moved along a wire and was automated to see when an object was close and would stop a particular distance from it.

She said she was concentrating on changes in visual images and learning how to
apply the knowledge she gained to learn how people react to their environments.

Another unusual robot was a mechanical Elvis head. The head, which was built by the Robotics Club, can move its eyes and blink.

The biggest robot was CRAMER, which was in a separate room. CRAMER is a boxy, human-size red robot that can move its arm and head.

Visitors were impressed by the robots at the open house.

“It’s fun – kinda different,” said senior Grace Lee, an Eigenmann Hall resident assistant.

She said she had been directing people who had been looking for the open house for a while and got interested, so she decided to come see what it was like.

“There’s a lot of good stuff happening,” graduate student Eric Nichols said.