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Monday, April 20th at 7pm

ATX Hackerspace: 9701 Dessau Rd Suite 304, Austin, Texas 78754

Dorkbot is back and we have a new home! April’s Dorkbot features an amazing group of presenters and a VERY special Social Robot Social after party featuring social robot creations by members of Borgfest after the presentations!

April’s Dorkbot will feature three amazing talks about interactive learning machines! After the show, Borgfest will have some social robots to play and interact with, and Mickey Delp will open up the Music Machine for the audience to make their own sounds!

Doors at 7pm
Talks start at 730pm
All ages!
BYOB/BYOFood!
Plenty of parking!

I Got No Strings: Puppeteer Removal through Machine Learning on a Social Robot
by Brad Knox

Brad will talk about research at MIT, where he and others investigated whether robots can be effectively programmed for autonomous social interaction through a machine-learning method called “learning from demonstration”. In this case, the method involves learning from Wizard-of-Oz teleoperation, in which the robot’s human interaction partner is unaware of the human puppeteer. To test this technique—Learning from the Wizard— it was used to create an autonomous robot that acts as a playful learning companion for young children. Brad will share what he did and what was learned.

Brad Knox is prototyping tiny, lifelike toy robots, which he hopes are coming soon to a home (many homes!) near you. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the MIT Media Lab, computer science PhD student at UT Austin, and an undergrad studying psychology at Texas A&M University. His research spanned machine learning, human-robot interaction, and psychology, with a focus on machine learning algorithms that learn through human interaction.

The Music Machine
by Mickey Delp

Mickey Delp will show and talk about the creation of his new MUSIC MACHINE, a walk up and play music device created to show people of all ages, with very little instruction, how to create music and change sounds. The Music Machine made its debut at the 2015 SXSW Create event: http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/03/17/198258/mickey-delp-makes-walk-up-and-play-electronic-instruments-video

DAR-1
by Ray Renteria

Ray will show and talk about his interactive robot, DAR-1, which was shown at the Robot Petting Zoo during SXSW: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/16/robots-torture-sxsw