BIOGRAPHY
Nanu Swamy is an educational entrepreneur and the Founder and Director of Technology for RoboTech Center. His passion is to create and present fundamentally new directions to portray "technology" in simple, easy to understand paradigms, which could be easily imbibed by the younger generation. His interests also include finding means to break down the mental barriers that deter the build-up of a symbiotic relationship between "people" and "technology". He has developed Game Design Curriculum using 2d and 3d software for use in elementary and middle schools. He delivers programs for the Boston Museum of Science, and has developed portable technology curriculum that have been delivered at schools, colleges and community centers.
EXHIBIT
A Game of Treasure Hunt with AIBO's
Thursday & Friday
The Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo game machines have made their entry into many households by entertaining people with engaging games. These game machines could evolve into a new breed of mobile wireless-computing agents. The Sony AIBO is an example of such an intelligent computing device that is making inroads into homes. This interactive exhibit focuses on the creation of interactive games using these intelligent devices.
A custom-made treasure hunt game will be demonstrated using the 4-legged robot made by Sony Corporation. This interactive game requires significant computing power to process images. Smaller handheld gaming devices are not suitable for image processing. Speech synthesis and speech recognition are also two capabilities required for this game. Also, we also need something that moves to be able to play the game. All this can be done using the AIBO. It is a mobile wireless computing agent that has image and voice processing capabilities. Since it has 802.11b wireless capabilities, it can be used to interact with gaming devices available on the network.
This interactive exhibit introduces participants to new paradigms that are evolving in the gaming industry using a real world example. A couple of AIBO's will be brought over to the conference site to demonstrate this unique game.