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Augmented reality and social interaction platform through multirobot design
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Gaming environments have proved to be very popular and easily accessible social interaction platforms in a nowadays highly technological and sometimes isolated world. Parallel to this, robotics has tried over the years to provide educational tools to reach closer to younger generations. With this aim in mind, this paper presents the fusion between massively highly distributed video-games and real interaction with actual physical robot platforms, both commercial and amateur ones. The resulting development is a network distributed game called Robot Devastation, which calls for amateurs and professional roboticists to collaborate, play and develop software, hardware and algorithms crossing the bridge between the virtual and real world, making use of cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality and cloud computing.
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... ECRO is a wheeled platform [14] with two 12 V motors, two motor controllers, an Arduino Mini board to interface the motor controllers with the PC and a netbook PC that sits on top of the robot. The motors are powered from 12 V leadacid batteries, whereas the netbook is powered by its stock LiPo battery. ...
We present Robot Devastation, a multiplayer augmented reality game using low-cost robots. Players can assemble their low-cost robotic platforms and connect them to the central server, commanding them through their home PCs. Several low-cost platforms were developed and tested inside the game.
... ECRO is a wheeled platform [14] with two 12 V motors, two motor controllers, an Arduino Mini board to interface the motor controllers with the PC and a netbook PC that sits on top of the robot. The motors are powered from 12 V leadacid batteries, whereas the netbook is powered by its stock LiPo battery. ...
We present Robot Devastation, a multiplayer augmented reality game using low-cost robots. Players can assemble their low-cost robotic platforms and connect them to the central server, commanding them through their home PCs. Several low-cost platforms were developed and tested inside the game.
Las tecnologías modernas se están incorporando progresivamente a nuestra vida cotidiana, encontrándonos rodeados de elementos que están compuestas por avanzados sistemas electrónicos embebidos: teléfonos móviles, ebooks, netbooks. Son ordenadores en miniatura que poco se parecen a sus antecesores, que ocupaban habitaciones enteras y sólo podían ser manejados por especialistas. Incluso niños pequeños son capaces de interactuar con sus pantallas táctiles o botones, navegando a través de pestañas, menús, e iconos. Lo que es más, incluyen la electrónica y el software necesarios para proporcionar las capacidades de comunicación inalámbrica que son explotadas por los autores, como se explica en el contenido de este capítulo. Todos estos avances han sido incorporados de forma natural en el ámbito de la robótica. Desde el régimen estacionario de las plantas de producción, ahora esta tecnología se puede encontrar en tiendas de consumo, y en última instancia, en nuestro entorno doméstico. En el amplio alcance de la robótica y la automatización, esto incluye desde persianas automáticas y aspiradoras motorizadas a manipuladores robóticos avanzados menos habituales. La investigación mundial actual se centra en cómo introducir elementos dinámicos y móviles para realizar “tareas domésticas” que requieren manipulación compleja y habilidades de razonamiento. Sin embargo, estas tecnologías empezarán a hacer nuestra vida más sencilla sólo con el desarrollo de interfaces humano-robot que proporcionen comodidad y satisfacción al usuario. En este capítulo, los autores proponen la fusión de la robótica con las capacidades de navegación web de los dispositivos modernos, y presentan implementaciones de prueba de concepto para tres plataformas robóticas diferentes: un robot móvil, un UAV, y un robot manipulador escalador.
Resumen Las ideas del software libre se están extendiendo a otro ambitos. Uno de ellos es el hardware. En este artículo presentamos una tarjeta libre, para desarrollo de proyectos con microcontroladores PIC. Es hardware libre, por lo que cualquiera la puede utilizar, estudiar, fabri-car, modificar, distribuir y redistribuir las modificaciones. Las aplicacio-nes principales son la robótica y la docencia, aunque se puede utilizar en cualquier proyecto donde se requiera un microcontrolador. Los diseños de hardware libre presentan muchas ventajas para la sociedad, siendo la mayor de ellas el aumento del conocimiento tecnológico: están ahí no sólo para ser usados, sino para que cualquiera pueda comprender su fun-cionamiento interno.
Ceabot competition, first national competition of humanoid robots for degree and postgraduate courses students, is introduced. It is organized by the robotic part and automation Spanish committee (CEA-IFAC). Three editions already took place. Its aim is to encourage students to start with robotics, programming little humanoid robots that were constructed by themselves or adapted from a commercial kit. In the paper the main aspects of the organization, the rules and the competition are revised.
Computer games are very popular among Malaysians especially youngster as they are easily accessed anywhere with the widespread availability of computer in Malaysia. We believe that computer games could and should be exploited as another medium for teaching and learning in Malaysian schools. An investigation about the possibilities of optimizing computer games as another pedagogy instrument especially focusing at students’ social skills development had been conducted in Malaysia. 341 public school students and 24 teachers across Selangor Darul Ehsan were involved and 9 computer games were tested. The results showed that with each game has different gameplay, challenges and genre, students’ social skills development could be slightly improved. The important issue is not the object or technology used in teaching and learning, but how it is being applied and diffused. Teachers have to take a positive and active role in ensuring that these computer games are incorporated effectively especially for students’ social skills development.
Off-the-shelf robotic kits are found in almost all retail stores. Most share common elements like motors, sensors, and a computer processor that permits the robots to be programmed to move autonomously in their environment. In addition, the wide scale availability and relatively low cost have made the robotic kits increasingly popular among students and teachers. Robotics competitions that are held annually in most countries are especially popular. The experience presented here is about the efforts of a group of students to teach each other in a peer-to-peer fashion and to manage several contest-related projects.
The tremendous and still growing popularity of computer and video games has inspired Communication Researchers and Media Psychologists to investigate the factors of the enjoyment experienced by the players. Apparently, the games' interactivity allows for a continuous stream of challenging and competitive situations that have to be resolved by the players. Competition is therefore regarded a key element of the explanation of players' entertainment experience. Subsequent to a theoretical explication, empirical evidence for the role of competition in the playing process and the impact of competitiveness for selective exposure to computer games is reported from a field experiment (N = 349) and an online survey study (N = 795).
It has been speculated that computer game play by young people has negative correlates or consequences, although little evidence has emerged to support these fears. An alternative possibility is that game play may be associated with positive features of development, as the games reflect and contribute to participation in a challenging and stimulating voluntary leisure environment. This study examined the relationship between game play and several measures of adjustment or risk taking in a sample of 16-year-old high school students. No evidence was obtained of negative outcomes among game players. On several measures—including family closeness, activity involvement, positive school engagement, positive mental health, substance use, self-concept, friendship network, and disobedience to parents—game players scored more favorably than did peers who never played computer games. It is concluded that computer games can be a positive feature of a healthy adolescence.
The MagicBook is a Mixed Reality interface that uses a real book to seamlessly transport users between Reality and Virtuality. A vision-based tracking method is used to overlay virtual models on real book pages, creating an Augmented Reality (AR) scene. When users see an AR scene they are interested in they can fly inside it and experience it as an immersive Virtual Reality (VR). The interface also supports multi-scale collaboration, allowing multiple users to experience the same virtual environment either from an egocentric or an exocentric perspective. In this paper we describe the MagicBook prototype, potential applications and user feedback.
Robot projects are often evolutionary dead ends, with the software and hardware they produce disappearing without trace afterwards. In humanoid robotics, a small field with an avid appetite for novel devices, we experience a great deal of "churn" of this nature. In this paper, we explore how best to make our projects stable and long-lasting, without compromising our ability to constantly change our sensors, ac- tuators, processors, and networks. We also look at how to encourage the propagation and evolution of hardware designs, so that we can start to build up a "gene-pool" of material to draw upon for new projects. We advance on two fronts, software and hardware. For some time, we have been de- veloping and using the YARP robot software architecture (11), which helps organize communication between sensors, processors, and actuators so that loose coupling is encouraged, making gradual system evolution much easier. YARP includes a model of communication that is transport-neutral, so that data flow is decoupled from the details of the underlying networks and protocols in use. Importantly for the long term, YARP is designed to play well with other architectures. Device drivers written for YARP can be ripped out and used without any "middleware." On the network, basic interoperation is possible with a few lines of code in any language with a socket library, and maximally ecient interoperation can be achieved by following docu- mented protocols. These features are not normally the first things that end-users look for when starting a project, but they are crucial for longevity. We emphasize the strategic utility of the Free Software social contract (15) to soft- ware development for small communities with idiosyncratic requirements. We also work to expand our community by releasing the design of our ICub humanoid (25) under a free and open license, and funding development using this platform.