Looney is a NAO Humanoid Robot from Aldebaran Robotics. Looney is a Developer Program Robot. Loony can walk, talk, hear, balance on one leg. Full Internet access. Looney can be programmed in many languages but for fully autonomous behaviors Looney is programmed in Python and C++. Looney's animation can be done with keyframing very similar to animating a character in a 3D animated movie.
Hunter Lloyd, Who is he?
Hunter Lloyd is an
award winning Professor, business owner, inventor,
author, comedian, and family man. While Hunter was an undergraduate
student studying accounting, he postponed his college career to start
a career in stand-up comedy. For six years Hunter toured the country
working with acts such as Jerry Seinfeld, and Tim Allen. Hunter
headlined his first comedy show at Laffs in Tucson, Arizona at the age
of 23, he appeared on television networks such as MTV, VH1 and The
Comedy Channel.
After touring for several years, Hunter went back to complete his
undergraduate degree and graduate school where he studied engineering
and computer science which eventually led him to the field of
robotics. Hunter is now a Professor of Robotics at Montana State
University in Bozeman, Montana. Hunter and his students claimed high
honors along with their Montana MULE robot to outperform schools like
Carnegie Melon and Harvard to capture the 2010 NASA Robotics
Championship. In 2012, Hunter and his robot, Looney, attended the
Robot Olympic Games in
San Francisco, California where he took home five medals, the most medals by
any one robot.
The event was attended
by over 500 robots from around the world, and Looney was the Michael Phelps of
the Robot Games.
Hunter is also a
robotics entrepreneur; founding a
robotics company in 2005 that helped develop the RangeWatcher and
WatchKeeper technologies for the Predator Unmanned Aircraft Group.
Today, Hunter combines his skills as a robotics engineer and comedian
to perform to audiences of students, inspiring them to follow their
dreams in the fields of math and science. Together with his team of
robots, Hunter demonstrates, with math and science, anything is
possible.
Nao Robots Commercial?
At this time you can not buy a clone of Looney, but the hopes are to have the NAO robotic platform as a commercial option sometime in the year 2014.
If you'd like a NAO Humanoid Robot what would you do with it? What would you want your very own Looney to be able to accomplish? As a Developer I'm trying to think of everything a owner might want their robot to do so I can have a application available when the robots become a commercial product.
In the meantime Looney and I will continue to perform the Robot Comedy Show promoting math and science, but most importantly a fun understaning of robotics and how robots will change our lives. In 2012, Looney, along with several more of his robot friends, performed in front of over 10,000 kids ranging in ages from 5 to 85.
Here is a picture of Looney in the Charlotte, NC airport on his way to one of his performances.
Hunter Lloyd is an
award winning Professor, business owner, inventor,
author, comedian, and family man. While Hunter was an undergraduate
student studying accounting, he postponed his college career to start
a career in stand-up comedy. For six years Hunter toured the country
working with acts such as Jerry Seinfeld, and Tim Allen. Hunter
headlined his first comedy show at Laffs in Tucson, Arizona at the age
of 23, he appeared on television networks such as MTV, VH1 and The
Comedy Channel.