FROG has a new friend. Piggy just arrived one morning to help the researchers. Was he a mascot or a spirit guide? We may never know! But somehow when things got exciting Piggy was heard to snort an encouraging: “oink-oink!”.
… and Piggy makes two!
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Fount of all knowledge
If there is a fountain of knowledge, then surely, this must be it: it’s full of researchers!
By the way, the Royal Alcázar is not keen on people misusing their fountains in this way.
Guess who’s coming to dinner!
One afternoon, during field tests at the Royal Alcazar in Seville FROG was confronted with preparations for an outdoor dinner. These tables had not been there in the morning.
We are pleased to be able to say that FROG navigated the tables without mishaps. Flapping table cloths were a bit of a mystery – but one that can be solved with simple table cloth weights.
Talk about FROG
So, the news is spreading!
Here’s what some people are saying about FROG:
“Cortocircuito te enseña el Alcázar de Sevilla“
“The FROG Robot Is Assuredly the Most Adorable Robo-Guide Around“
Lab setup for docking sequence
The UPO research team has made a mockup of the space where the FROG will go to recharge. UPO is finalizing their implemention of the docking sequence.
After testing, the docking station will be placed in the shop near the entrance of the Royal Alcazar. This will be the FROG’s base for all of next week. When it is running low on power, the robot will return to the shop, align itself to the docking station and drive on to recharge its batteries.
This lab has a view of the Tennis Courtyard of the Royal Alcazar and the tower of the cathedral.
Felipe VI and Corpus Christi
Today the FROG team is working to the sound of bells. Seville is celebrating Corpus Christi, and, Spain’s new king, Felipe VI has been sworn in.
Point of Interest
Recalibrating the first location of the tour after what had looked like a promising position to place the robot turned out to be a fountain. This is one example of the small matters that have to be checked on location during integration sessions. The location was pinpointed for use by researchers from the Netherlands on a map generated by the researchers from Seville. The map was good enough to show a feature – local knowledge was required to know what the feature was. And the correction took only seconds once a perfect spot had been chosen.
new StateMachine for FROG
Next week the FROG robot will be back in Seville to test the new StateMachine, autonomous missions and the docking sequence for recharging the batteries between missions. There will be some playful content for the demo runs and the researchers will be collecting more material for expanding this to a full tour for the Final Event to be held in September 2014.
Big green FROG at the Royal Alcázar
Last week the FROG robot appeared in all its glory – green at last – at the Royal Alcázar in Seville. We had a very successful integration and data collection meeting and ran user experiments and observation sessions with multimodal presentations on the robot. The aim of this project is to make a fun robot to augment the grand work done by human tour guides at heritage sites and zoos.
In September we will hold presentations and demonstrations about the project to an invited audience and we hope to have a lot of feedback from the tour guides as to how a robot could someday become their new colleague. Ask not, what can you do for the robot, but, what can the robot do for you?
a FROG and a friend
… at the Hannover Messe – April 2014
With thanks to EWI Nieuws whose photo I have borrowed.