Robot helps engage environmental interest
Pint-sized humanoid designed to engage with center visitors
Pepper can tell you all about the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater — and how you can become a citizen scientist and lend a hand with the center’s research.
When 6-year-old Michael McConnell of Davidsonville visited the facility’s Reed Education Center on a recent Friday, Pepper was standing near the door to greet him. Michael asked Pepper to tell him a story — and he did, all about the research and activities underway at the center, accompanied by a slideshow presentation on a tablet attached to its torso.
Pepper is a robot, one of a dozen being employed by the Smithsonian Institution and dispersed over six locations, including two at the Edgewater center.
The devices, donated by Softbank Robotics, are being used by the institution as another tool to engage visitors.
During Pepper’s interaction with Michael, the the 4-foot tall humanoid danced with the boy and taught him how to play an invisible musical instrument, making noise to accompany the drumming motions Michael’s hands made.
He and his mother Anne McConnell came to the center just to see Pepper — “He’s really excited,” she said — but after their encounter he went to go check out a tank of fish inside the center. Engaging people and getting them to learn about environmental science through the use of new technology is precisely why the little robot is there.
The center has two kinds of “Peppers”
— all the robots have the same name — according to public engagement program assistant Cosette Larash, who said she has come to view the robots as friends after working with them for months.
The one on display Friday came with software that gives it all the basics it needs to serve as a host. It can narrate slideshow “stories” about the center, it can entertain, it can answer pre-programmed questions about the center and itself.
The center’s second Pepper came with a different type of software that is more customizable, and Larash has been working with a group of students from South River High School to make it “more human” by programming unique gestures and changing its voice.
Motions, such as the abilit to pinch like a crab, are meant to accompany environmental stories told by the robot.
The students — Dan DeRycke, Cole Kindig and Zach Livesay — got the robot in March, and programmed it as part of a community challenge class required of all juniors in the school’s STEM magnet.
“By altering the voice vocal patterns
When 6-year-old Michael McConnell of Davidsonville visited the facility’s Reed Education Center on a recent Friday, Pepper was standing near the door to greet him. Michael asked Pepper to tell him a story — and he did, all about the research and activities underway at the center, accompanied by a slideshow presentation on a tablet attached to its torso.
Pepper is a robot, one of a dozen being employed by the Smithsonian Institution and dispersed over six locations, including two at the Edgewater center.
The devices, donated by Softbank Robotics, are being used by the institution as another tool to engage visitors.
During Pepper’s interaction with Michael, the the 4-foot tall humanoid danced with the boy and taught him how to play an invisible musical instrument, making noise to accompany the drumming motions Michael’s hands made.
He and his mother Anne McConnell came to the center just to see Pepper — “He’s really excited,” she said — but after their encounter he went to go check out a tank of fish inside the center. Engaging people and getting them to learn about environmental science through the use of new technology is precisely why the little robot is there.
The center has two kinds of “Peppers”
— all the robots have the same name — according to public engagement program assistant Cosette Larash, who said she has come to view the robots as friends after working with them for months.
The one on display Friday came with software that gives it all the basics it needs to serve as a host. It can narrate slideshow “stories” about the center, it can entertain, it can answer pre-programmed questions about the center and itself.
The center’s second Pepper came with a different type of software that is more customizable, and Larash has been working with a group of students from South River High School to make it “more human” by programming unique gestures and changing its voice.
Motions, such as the abilit to pinch like a crab, are meant to accompany environmental stories told by the robot.
The students — Dan DeRycke, Cole Kindig and Zach Livesay — got the robot in March, and programmed it as part of a community challenge class required of all juniors in the school’s STEM magnet.
“By altering the voice vocal patterns
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