Mathew Whillans Undergraduate Dissertation 2015/16

A NAO Open Day Guide

Supervised by G.Brown

Abstract

Working on the departmental open days it was clear from observing the interactions with the NAO robots and prospective students that the students expected more from the robot.

The aim of the project was to deliver a series of integrated technologies, namely, a smart phone app , a web app and a Python implementation of facial recognition on the NAO robot using OpenCV . This aim was to provide the student with an enriched experience on the open days, due to an enhanced interaction with the NAO robot. It will enable the robot to recognise  the student from the picture provided through the smart phone app and provide a more personalised  experience than would otherwise be achievable.

The project has resulted in an Android app , a PHP and MySQL  based web app and the originally proposed python implementation allowing facial recognition. The suite of technologies given were evaluated with the mind of determining whether or not an open day would be improved by their inclusion. User feedback was very positive in this regard and, as a result, the project outcome can state that it would improve the open day experience by its inclusion.