Team: Dr. Jenay Beer, Karina Liles, De’aira Bryant, Emma Drobina
Abstract: The purpose of this project, headed by Dr. Jenay Beer and Karina Liles, is to gauge the effectiveness of a NAO humanoid robot as a 5th grade math tutor, specifically for students in rural South Carolina. We programmed the NAO robot to guide students through a series of math workbook problems. The robot would ask each question and explain it further if the student got it wrong. We conducted a user study with students from rural South Carolina.
My contributions to this project included helping to collect data and record results, as well as collecting academic articles. I was also taught how to use Choregraphe and program the NAO using both Choregraphe and Python. I also coded videos of past data collection sessions to build a decision tree.
I gained programming experience by learning to program the NAO robot in both Choregraphe and Python. I learned how to build decision trees in Python, and became familiar with the ID3 decision tree algorithm. I also completed IRB human subjects training in order to be able to participate in data collection for this project. Additionally, I learned to gather relevant academic articles. Finally, I learned how to interact with human participants, particularly children.