Calypso for Cozmo

Abstract

In light of our field/s progress in making programming accessible to novices, we contemplate an even more ambitious goal: make AI accessible to all. The Cozmo robot by Anki is revolutionizing consumer and educational robotics through built-in computer vision and artificial intelligence algorithms. Calypso is a scaffolded robot programming environment for Cozmo inspired by Microsoft/s Kodu Game Lab. Calypso allows novices to program with advanced features such as visual recognition of objects and faces, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), landmark-based navigation, and speech input. Like Kodu, Calypso emphasizes rule-based programming with high-level primitives such as "see", "hear", "move toward", and "grab", and it uses an Xbox game controller as its primary interface. User testing of Calypso has shown that children as young as eight can easily use it to program Cozmo.