1. Project number and Title: Grounding via Embedded Cues and Affordances Utilizing an Android Phone as a Low-Cost Robotics Platform.  Project 16.

2. Should this project be considered for the Best Project award? no

3. Should this project be considered for the top 3 project awards? no

4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall organization/clarity of the project report? 9

5. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall project idea? 8

6. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall research contribution of the project idea, methodology and/or results?  7


* Overall, is the project report clear, concise, and well-organized?
The project was for the most part clear.  I wish more explanation would be given about some of the commands that you mentioned in the paper.  However, I thought that your points in the introduction (especially the point about robot accommodations) really established the motivation behind your project.  There was some confusion as you begin talking about dataflow and how information is processed, but I imagine that the system as a whole is so complicated that there is no really easy way to report on it.

* How does the project idea and methodology fit within the framework of Developmental Robotics?
I see this project as a reach for practicality.  Obviously artificial intelligence will not be here for a long time: 50 years, 500 years, who knows…  However, we already tons of people complaining “I want my household robot.”  Given that Honda and Toyota are not even close to the humanoid household robots that they announced, I see your project to be like a midway between where we are now and the end goal.  Though it doesn’t explore much in the interest of intelligence, it approaches some problems nonetheless, need to be explored. 

* Describe what you like BEST about the project?
I really liked how everything in the project was designed to sit within reasonable means.  Specifically, that everything was cheap and/or easily obtainable.  It spells practicality, and ensures that some company won’t sell each unit for one million dollars without some speculation.  The idea of storing learned object data with some sort of id is an interesting way to eliminate the need for good object recognition software which may still take a while to develop.  I like the project because it is an implementation of a simple real world scenario with an interactive module.  Many people have worked on the whole human interaction side of robotics, with limited success.

* Describe what you like LEAST about the project?
I don’t like that there is no real aspect of intelligence being explored.  An important aspect of developmental robotics trying to understand the roots of intelligence and just how it works.  Though your project uses learning algorithms, it doesn’t really approach any ideas of intelligence or autonomous development.  Therefore, if and when real intelligence does happen, your robot will quickly become obsolete.  It would be nice to know a little more information about your learning algorithms.  I’m curious to know what exactly they do.

* Do the methods, results and contributions of the final project correspond to what was presented in the initial project proposal?
There were obvious difficulties expressed in the paper which led the project down a path different from the proposal.  However these differences are somewhat minor in the whole scope of the project and they tended to only be based on how the experiment was implemented.  The good thing was that the proposed experiment as a whole was consistent.  The actual experiment concept seemed to follow that of the proposal – only the methods of implementation changed.

* Are there any major details left out with regards to the methods, algorithms, or experimental design described in the report?
Like I mentioned earlier, it would have been nice to read more information about the programs that you used such as the speech recognition.  It would also be cool to have source code or model diagrams in an appendix so I can better see what your whole system looks like.

* Do the experimental results reported in the paper demonstrate success?
There were definitely areas where success was achieved, but also places that could use work.  It would have been nice to see more analysis of your results.  Maybe include some more conceptual demonstrations of the results.

* Do you have any suggestions for improvement and future work?

* How close is the final project report to being publishable as a conference or journal paper (consider the research papers that were part of the course reading)? What would it take to get there?
Although this paper is well written, it is still far from being at the level of being published.  First of all, I’m sure the author will agree with me in saying that the results not as complete as the ideal scenario would have it.  (no offence intended here)  It seems like, based your reflections in the report, that you were unable to do everything you wanted because technical difficulties added by your programming setup.  These situations can be expected when trying to complete a research project in a months’ time.  The good thing is that you seem very passionate about this subject, and it would be good to spend more of your own time really getting the results you were hopping for if you are interested in publishing.
Another thing to add is that you may want to be careful about your writing style.  Many parts of the paper were written on a somewhat informal basis.  Though this is engaging to a reader (I was really engaged and interested while reading it), publications seem to be more for results and documentation of research, ect.  So to get this paper to the level of publication, you will really want to try to remove the personal aspect in the paper, and make it look as professional as possible.
Given the project approach and format, I would almost rather see this content in form of a website.  Websites are often in a more personal writing level, and I could see the platform of this project being very popular with some of the innovative thinkers of today’s youth.  Sometimes those opportunities can be just as rewarding as a publication under your name.
I really enjoyed your paper.