NAO Robots and Choregraphe

Background

For my research project for my class, SCI 295CS (STEM Research Exp. in Computer Science) at Kapiolani CC, my classmates and I worked with the NAO robot. NAO is the first humanoid robot created by Aldebaran Robotics in 2005. NAO has many built-in sensors to help closely mimic human behavior. Now in its 6th generation, NAO has become recognized as the standard robot used for education and research purposes. This functioned as a fairly freeform project, with each of us being free to explore the possibilities of what we wanted to program NAO to do. At the end of the semester, we presented at the Student Undergraduate Research Fair (SURF).

Programming NAO

There are two ways to program NAO using Choregraphe:

1) Drag and drop actions from the box libraries on the left into the middle window, creating a flow diagram. This is very similiar to Scratch.

2) Create your own boxes in Choregraphe and write your code in the Script Editor (I used Python, but NAO is supported in other languages like Java and C++).

Because NAO is humanoid, there are many possibilities you can do with NAO. I wanted to explore the movement side of NAO, by trying to create a workout robot. I had NAO stand up, raise its arms and walk in different directions. Then, I had NAO move its arms and sit back down.

Working with NAO was my first exposure to robotics. From working on this project, I learned how to use Choregraphe and it also exposed me on how you can use Python for artificial intelligence. We encountered some challenges while working with NAO, ranging from connectivity issues to issues with facial and voice recognition.