Last month, the 2021 SoftBank Robot Cup International Youth Artificial Intelligence Competition was successfully concluded! As one of the bonus competitions of the Ministry of Education, it has gained full attention and support.

There are three major competitions: Pepper Robot Service, NAO Robot Golf and NAO robot Walking. Among them, the Layout team of Jinling Institute of Science and Technology won the first prize of Pepper Competition with excellent ideas and excellent works presentation! GUI Wenming from the School of Software Engineering shared with us the full experience of Layout team competition preparation in this competition.

1 Good results are inseparable from accumulation and innovation

Bonded by interest

Jinling Institute of Science and Technology participated in the Soft Silver Cup competition for the first time in 2019, and won the second prize in the Pepper Competition that year! Such progress this time is inseparable from the accumulation of team history. As the lead teacher, Ms. GUI has profound research in artificial intelligence and software, and teaches her professional knowledge to each other, which is also one of the reasons for the progress of the team.

Layout team is a comprehensive team, more than 30 students from software, artificial intelligence, computer and other majors.We are both robot enthusiasts, bonded by interest,came here to work on robots together.

A good beginning is half done

After deciding to participate in the soft Silver Cup competition, the Layout team spent about 2 months actively preparing for the competition. The five students are from software majors and artificial intelligence majors, but they have one thing in common, that is, they all have a strong interest in Pepper robot, which is also an important factor to help the team win the final prize. And the five students have a clear division of labor and play a full role in programming and solutions according to their respective expertise.

In the process of preparation, in addition to the accumulation from the team, the main way for students to learn is the official training conducted by SoftBank robots (ps: Welcome to station B - SoftBank Robots China to watch).

In addition, in the process of preparation, Teacher GUI will also consciously cultivate students' independent learning ability. As a teacher, I will no longer teach students code by hand, but try my best to help students broaden the way to find information, and pay more attention to the gain and growth of students' ability in the learning process than the competition.

There are two bottlenecks here

Every challenge is a breakthrough for the self. This time, the Layout team focuses on the field of elderly care and applies Pepper to the scene of serving the elderly. In the whole process, Pepper understands the instructions to take the glasses and the remote video call scene is not only the highlight of helping the work to present perfectly, but also the two major bottlenecks encountered by the students.

In the process of taking the glasses, how to make Pepper go to another area to get the glasses while understanding the instructions, and accurately return the items to the hands of the command involves several modules such as voice recognition, face recognition, and movement. Check out the final perfect presentation of Pepper!

The second is the video call function, before this team members have no reference project, so they need to find a way from zero to one. In the process, the team members also actively sought the help of the teacher, understood more ways to find information, tried various methods, and finally realized this function with everyone's unremitting efforts.

Afterwards, at the general meeting, we also shared the technology without reservation.Compared with achieving technical breakthroughs, this kind of inheritance and accumulation is more touching.The growth you gain in identifying problems - finding solutions - solving them is invaluable.

In addition to the success of the project, the kind of touching that the robot brings to the students is unparalleled. Before this, many students did not have a concrete concept of robots, and they always heard about them, but had no actual interaction. Mr. GUI said that soft silver cups also provided students with a good opportunity to understand robots and learn robots, many students saw the physical humanoid robots, have a strong interest.

Success comes with regret

For this Layout team to achieve the first place, Teacher GUI believes that there are mainly two reasons:

• The first is the historical accumulation of the team, at the beginning of the team, each generation of players are studying hard, and the experience is shared without reservation, such a succession of inheritance, full of strength。

• In addition, the five players in this competition cooperated well, the division of labor was clear, and each performed his own duties. Even if there are difficulties in the preparation process, we can communicate efficiently and solve them quickly.

Of course, this competition also left a regret, because of the epidemic, the players could not feel the intense atmosphere of the competition at the scene. If there is a chance, the contestants still hope to be able to witness the robot to achieve one creative and technological application after another, constantly breaking their limits.

Teacher's expectation

"For the team, each competition is a new test, not only for the students, but also for the teachers. In this competition, both in terms of works and results, I think the team performed very well.I hope they can build on their efforts and achieve more！”

2 Write it after the game

Pepper's incomparable

Miss GUI's love for Pepper is beyond expression. In the process of getting along for a long time, Mr. GUI believes that Pepper's functions are very complete, with both movement, vision, hearing, and high freedom, which is the biggest difference compared with other robots. In addition, Pepper's high degree of openness, support for a variety of programming methods, and students can quickly get started, has played an important role in helping to popularize programming.

• Programming tool | Choregraphe - an advanced tool from graphical programming to Python
  

• Python course, start here, start your robot programming god road!
  

In addition to playing games, Pepper & NAO will also help with research and teaching at universities. For example, the interest team of Layout, although many students were attracted by the cute appearance of robots at the beginning, they also made some interesting applications with Pepper in the later stage when they were really immersed in the robot world, such as smart supermarket and smart medical treatment.

More real-life applications of Pepper:

• Pepper & NAO See the world | Check out Pepper's pre-medical checkup!
  

• Pepper & NAO See the world | Pepper helps the retail industry boost sales
  

Although some functions are still in the laboratory stage, great inventions always start from a casual idea, hoping that under the guidance of teachers, students can make more practical applications and serve people in the future.

The game also has these gains

In addition to the soft silver cup, Jinling University of Science and Technology also participated in RoboCup@Home Education in the first half of this year and achieved very good results. There are many robot competitions, can attract teachers and students continue to participate in addition to the love of Pepper & NAO, these two competitions are the Ministry of Education bonus items (portal - heavy attack | Pepper & NAO hand in hand with a number of competitions strong list!) For students in the future study, work has a great role in helping!

In addition, these two as a large competition, is a very good work display platform, and being able to watch other participants perform at a high level is a rare learning opportunity.GUI teacher also very hope that their students can cherish the opportunity, learn from each other, continue to surpass themselves, brave to climb the peak.

Combine theory with practice

In the process of studying Pepper, Teacher GUI thought that compared with other robots, Pepper not only looks cute, easy to stimulate the interest in learning;More importantly, the degree of openness is high. As a professional carrier, even students from different majors can find points of interest in Pepper, and put it into practice.

Robot education is very necessary for college students. It can not only help students find professional interest direction, but also combine with professional courses to carry out professional training and practice with the help of robots. Such learning is no longer the theoretical knowledge of scripted studies, but the harvest and growth in practice.

3 About the future

Find interests and grow

Artificial intelligence is in the process of perceptual intelligence to cognitive intelligence, GUI teacher hopes that in the future, robots can enter every household, truly achieve the scientific and technological revolution for the benefit of all mankind, so that more people enjoy the little changes brought by scientific and technological progress.

For Pepper and NAO, Mr. GUI thinks that they are very excellent products, which not only help students to carry out professional practice, but also let many students find their future research direction in the process of studying robots. I hope Pepper & NAO can better help students find their true interests, and SoftBank robots will continue to help education and help students thrive in this fertile soil.

For the team, there are these expectations

For the team, and these expectations, Teacher GUI hopes that the students in the team can learn more from the process of each competition, and continue to enhance their learning ability.Find your favorite research direction and move forward with your goal！

Students on the road to growth, I am very grateful to have GUI teacher such a good teacher and friend along the way. SoftBank Robot will also work with you, committed to scientific and technological innovation!