A reading and building group for human-robot interaction
RoboLab is a group of people, not a room. We meet periodically to investigate and discuss topics in human-robot interaction.
We start by identifying the areas within HRI that interest the group, then explore the literature and other resources in those areas. As a multidisciplinary field, HRI draws on design, systems, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, natural-language processing, philosophy, and psychology.
Each week, two volunteers lead the meeting: they choose a topic or resource and prepare questions or a presentation. Everyone else studies the resource beforehand so we can have a lively discussion. Since this is an informal group, participants come and go as their schedules change, but what we do follows a well-defined structure.
Our primary platform is the Aldebaran NAO6 humanoid robot, which we program both in the 3D simulator that ships with the Choregraphe IDE and on the physical robot. Students have also worked with ROS and a TurtleBot 3.
RoboLab started with Jules Ward who, after taking UNIV 200 Digital Transcendence, spent a semester of independent study learning to program the NAO6, including streaming video and audio from the robot to a computer. Cole Hausman and Ryan Mosenkis followed with their own semester of NAO6 work. That line of work led to HRIStudio and two RO-MAN papers with Sean O’Connor.
Membership, readings, and meeting schedule: robolab.scholar.bucknell.edu