Project Logs

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• May Project Update

  Ramya • 05/31/2019 at 14:08 • 0 comments

  Hello, 

  In the past month, I completed my humanoid robot. The robot had successful motion of six components - 2 brow bones, 2 mouth pieces, jaw, and neck. The coordinated movement of these six parts allowed for the successful display of four out of the six emotions identified at the beginning of the project. The emotions of fear and disgust were unable to be displayed because they looked too similar to those of sadness and anger, respectively. 

   Sad:

  Happy:

  Anger:

  Surprise:

  The project outlined in this site is evidence of the existence of a simple, affordable technological solution that can help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder better recognize emotions. Short term goals and additions to this project include:

  1. Additions of a wider range of emotions, specifically the emotions of fear and disgust that were not successfully displayed during this construction of the robot
  2. Develop an attachable body portion to the robotic head to create a full-body humanoid robot. The use of a full-body humanoid robot will allow for the display of emotions to also include body language, a complex yet essential component of emotional communication.
  3. Investigate the applications of implementing a conversational factor to the robot that can converse with the children based on presets. The responses of the robot would be controlled by an individual such as a parent or teacher, and the goal would be to have a conversation where the child would be forced to response to the emotional responses of the robot. For example, if the robot said they were said the child’s reaction should be to comfort them.

  A potential long-term goal of this project would be to redesign and make the robot into a kit that can be assembled at home. The large goal of this project was to find a simple, practical solution for teaching children with autism emotion recognition, and a kit that can easily be constructed and then deconstructed by a parent or even a child with ASD at home would greatly fulfill that goal. Possible applications of the current model of the robot would be in a classroom setting where teachers can guide students as they practice running through emotions.

• Monthly Update: March

  Ramya • 04/05/2019 at 20:50 • 0 comments

  Hello! 

  This month I decided to take focus my attention away from the servos and complete the eye controls. To begin with, I had to 3D print a lot of the parts again  - some of the parts from December weren't precise enoughWhen I 3D printed this month I ran into few issues (pieces not sticking to the base, etc.). Attached below are my completed 3D printed parts. I decided to do pink eyelids to bring some vibrancy to my robot and make it more engaging/interesting (We may have also just ran out of white PLA). 

• January/February Monthly Log

  Ramya • 04/05/2019 at 20:33 • 0 comments

  Hello!

  I have decided to combine my January and February logs, because these two months were filled with a lot of missed school days due to snow and out-of-school field trips. These months I focused on installing the servos into the laser cut parts. My biggest issue during this installation was that the laser cut parts have really small holes for the screws, and I have been unable to find screws that secure the servo and fit into the laser cut part. Another issue, I've run into is finding control wires that are sturdy enough for the eye holes. Currently, I am exploring using piano wires. However, they may be to flimsy, so I am currently still researching. Let me know any suggestions you have!

• Monthly Update: December

  Ramya • 01/23/2019 at 04:05 • 0 comments

  Hello! Incredibly sorry for the delay with my December update. During the month of December I mainly focused on constructing the eye part of my robotic head. I was able to successfully 3D print five out of the six part's necessary for the eyes (attached below is an image). However, I ran into complications when 3D printing one of the more fragile parts. I plan to complete the eyes by the end of January.

• November Update

  Ramya • 12/10/2018 at 19:10 • 0 comments

  Hello! 

  Although progress this month was a little slow due to various school holidays and a period of sickness, I was still about to keep my project on track. Last month, I finished laser-cutting parts for the "head" of my robot and this month I was able to assemble these parts. The assembly process was fairly simple, the only problems I ran into were with some of the cuts not being completely clean. This month, I plan to redo the laser cuts and finish assembling the laser cut parts. I also plan to install all there servos so that in the New Year I can focus on coding the emotions of the robot.

  -Ramya Susarla

• Monthly Update: October

  Ramya • 11/03/2018 at 02:50 • 0 comments

  Hello! 

  Today's log will be an update for the month of October. I plan to update monthly and am excited to share my robotics journey with you. This month I mainly focused on solidifying the plan for my project. I researched articles that detailed successful emotional recognition experiments with children with ASD. These articles were incredibly helpful and they prompted me to add two more design features to my robotic head: 1) sound and 2) have an interactive and conversational aspect to the robot. Another accomplishment this month was finding a robotic head demo that I could follow for the building of mine. Rather than focusing on building the robotic head I really want to focus on coding the robot and making the emotions as precise as possible and having enough time to code more emotions and improvements. This past week, I finally began building my project. I started off by laser cutting all the necessary parts and next week I plan to 3D print the necessary components. 

  -Ramya

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