Peter Stone is a Computer Science professor at the University of Texas at Austin and he has used his NAO robots for different projects and classes, such as the RoboCup competition. This is his story. 

Peter realized that the NAO robot was the tool for him and his students when they decided to compete in RoboCup. NAO was the standard platform for the event. Besides programming the robot for the international robotics competition, Peter’s students also conducted research on AI, Machine Learning, and robotics. 

"We have used the robot extensively for research on grounded simulation learning, which allowed us to generate the fastest known walk on the robot," said Peter. "The students really like that NAO looks very slick and it's fully programmable." 

According to Stone NAO is a great robot for teaching graduate robotics, NAO brings a positive impact on the community and the rest of the University. It is also a great platform for outreach events such as Explore UT https://exploreut.utexas.edu/ 

In his classes, Peter introduces his graduate students to autonomous robotics, which serves as a core class in the Graduate Portfolio Program in Robotics. Using NAO robots, students learn how to program the components of a team of robots for playing soccer under the rules of the RoboCup standard platform league. All students learn how to program the robots directly.

If successful, class members have the opportunity to further their work in this course by participating in an entry in a RoboCup competition.

Interested in the NAO Robot?

The latest version of NAO which includes 10 major improvements is here! The result of a unique combination of mechanical engineering and software, NAO is a character made up of a multitude of sensors, motors, and software piloted by a made-to-measure operating system: NAOqi OS.