AI, AIBO and ART: Inspiring Interaction with Computer Science

Using AI to Motivate Greater Participation in Computer Science

Volume

Using AI to Motivate Greater Participation in Computer Science

Contents

The field of human-robot interaction (HRI) is growing due to the availability of cost effective robots that can be employed for research and in education. Robots, like the Sony Aibo, can capture the imagination of the public. Being a robot dog encourages human interaction, which is relatively intuitive. To better understand human-robot interaction, HRI projects were included into undergraduate courses in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. The classroom became an unofficial research environment, where undergraduate students developed robotic projects that then were used to get children and adults excited about robotics and spur their motivation to learn more about computer science. This paper will describe three of these projects, the AiBee Robotic Art project, the Cassandra chat robot, and Woofie, the Kinesthetic Intelligent Tutor