CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Austin Peay State University's STEM department has a new four-legged friend, but not the kind you're used to seeing at the dog park.
The school recently purchased a robot dog that is programmed in advanced languages to perform tasks and follow instructions based on environmental cues. Right now, they are calling the robot dog Go1 based on its model, but they hope to name it soon.
"The Go1 is an exciting addition, not only for robotics enthusiasts like me, but for the entire community," Ethan Carrell, one of the first students to engage with the robot dog, said. "This summer, I presented the Go1 to over two hundred children who attended computer science camps at APSU."
The hope is that the robot will enhance learning for the students in Engineering and Computer Science departments, creating more interactive, hands-on opportunities. But it also goes beyond that.
“For example, let’s say the Department of Agriculture doesn’t have the resources to invest in robots, but maybe they want to explore the potential of this robot to help them with their program and to expose that information to their students,” Jody Alberd, an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Technology, said. “That was really the intent... To do things that we wouldn’t normally expect when you think of robotics like this.”
The robot uses both artificial intelligence and remote control technology. It has a sensor package that allows it to analyze and interact with its environment, so students can program it to interact in different ways based on what is around them.
"Although there were moments when I felt frustrated and overwhelmed – where I wanted to pull my hair out due to the Go1's occasional failures or lack of cooperation – I have learned a great deal from these challenges," Carrell said.
He said four-legged robots are much more complex than robots on wheels, and it has taught him how a more complex robot needs to approach problems.
In the future, he wants to continue to improve the robot's functionality for movement, and add new ways to make the robot solve more complex problems.
Alberd said he wants to look into taking it a step further and having students build one themselves.
“I would love to at some point look into students designing their own,” Alberd said. “That’s really the next step after this is going to be designing their own and creating their own unique research and unique robots.”
APSU took videos of the robot dog moving around at their student camps, if you want to see it in action.
