The Robotics Institute

RI | Seminar | September 9

Robotics Institute Seminar, September 9
Time and Place | Seminar Abstract | Speaker Biography | Speaker Appointments


The Interbots Initiative at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center:

Interactive Animatronics with character!

Randy Pausch, Will Bosley

Faculty

Carnegie Mellon University

Entertainment Technology Center

 

 

 

Webcast

 

View the seminar.

 

Time and Place

Mauldin Auditorium (NSH 1305)
Refreshments 3:15 pm
Talk 3:30 pm

Abstract

 

At the Interbots Initiative, we feel that an embodied character is critical to a believable animatronic experience-- no matter how impressive the technology, it is impossible to suspend an audience's disbelief and create the illusion of life without an engaging character and personality. We also believe that the most successful entertainment experiences involve the contributions of writers, animators, sculptors, painters, and other artists. Therefore, the development of simple, intuitive content creation tools that allow non-technologists to author content for entertainment robotics is essential.

 

Our two primary goals:

 

1.    Develop a fully interactive, autonomous animatronic character that is both believable and entertaining.

 

2.    Give non-technologists the ability to author content for entertaining animatronic experiences by developing an extensible platform

that allows artists to rapidly design and create complete and interactive social experiences with animatronic characters.

 

To meet these goals, we combine a multitude of technologies; including speech recognition, face tracking, proximity detection, synthetic interview, finite state machines, show control, and animatronics. These characters are developed and brought to life through custom-built animatronic figures created with off-the-shelf hobby servos.

 

Speaker Biography

 

www.interbots.org

 

Speaker Appointments

For appointments, please contact Jean Harpley. (jean@cs.cmu.edu)


The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.