1. Project #16: Grounding via Embedded Affordances Utilizing Android Phone as a Low-Cost Robotic Platform

2. Should this project be considered for the Best Project award? (yes/no)

  No

3. Should this project be considered for the top 3 project awards? (yes/no)

  No

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

  7

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

  6

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

  7

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****** Overall, is the project report clear, concise, and well-organized? ******

  Yes. The report is organized into sections, each explaining the project's method in an approproiate
order. The sentence and paragraph format is easy to understand, and there were no major sections of the
report that I couldn't understand. I did have some trouble reading a few paragraphs, though, and I
feel that a little proofreading might have helped the report. Overall, however, the report was well-written.


****** How does the project idea and methodology fit within the framework of Developmental Robotics? ******

  The idea that robots could one day be inside the house, cleaning up after us messy humans is one
that has been around for a very long time. This project attempts to make another step closer to that
reality by creating a "robot" that can locate and manipulate objects inside an actual home.
  I don't, however, see very much of a potential for development with this system. It's clear that
the robot is able to locate objects in the home, but I'm not sure how the robot could learn and
better itself while it is wandering around, guided by directions stored in a database. From what
I can tell, there is not much room for development in this project.


****** Describe what you like BEST about the project? ******

  I like the idea that robots will be able to one day roam around homes (and even the world) and 
help humans with everyday tasks like housework. I, too, am no fan of doing laundry, so it would
certainly be amazing if I could somehow get a robot to do all of it for me. I think that it's a great
idea to store affordances as well as just locations of the objects, because a real robot would certainly
need to be able to know what to do with an object once it found it. I agree that the barcodes are
a bit unsightly, but the RFID tag technology mentioned in the report would definitely decrease the
conspicuousness of the system and increase potential consumer appeal.


****** Describe what you like LEAST about the project? ******

  I'm not really sure how the project could fit within Developmental Robotics. I would like to
see some opportinities for the robot to learn something while it is maneuvering around the house
looking for objects. I think that the barcodes are far too static to be employed in an actual system,
and the fact that the objects' locations are hardcoded into the barcodes makes it impossible to account
for objects that might have moved since the last time they were seen.


****** Do the methods, results and contributions of the final project
correspond to what was presented in the initial project proposal? ******

  Yes. Overall, the project is very similar to the initial proposal. The method of using the QR barcodes
to store the objects' locations and affordances, as well as using the different robot modes to find 
objects and store data about them, were virtually identical to the proposal. 
  I even noticed some sections of the final report that seemed to have been copied and pasted from
the proposal. I think that it's best to rewrite the entire report, even if it involves typing the 
same thing over again word for word. It's a lot easier to find potential mistakes in your writing if
you actually read it while you write it.


****** Are there any major details left out with regards to the methods,
algorithms, or experimental design described in the report? ******

  No. All of the methods and algorithms involved in the project were adequately described in the
final report.


****** Do the experimental results reported in the paper demonstrate success? ******

  Yes. According to the report, the application was able to recognize most spoken commands, but sometimes
there were problems with the objects. The robot was able to successfully extract object location and
affordance data, and it navigated to the correct room when it was to find an object there. 


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

  I think that it would be interesting to try this project with the RFID tags that were suggested
in the report. It would definitely be a more natural appearance than having barcodes on every object
in the household, and I think that people would be much more open to it. However, the cost of RFID tags
could prove to be prohibitive, and it might not be a feasible option unless the cost decreases or a 
new technology comes along sometime in the future.


****** 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? ******

  I don't think that the report is near being publishable as a conference or journal paper.
  I think that, first and foremost, the report should undergo a thorough read-through. There were
several examples of typos and cut-off sentences, and it sometimes made it hard to understand what
the sentence was trying to say. I feel that if some of the ideas are phrased more clearly, and the
report is free of errors, then it would be a much more readable document.
  In addition, I think that the report could be made a little more formal. It seemed at times to 
be a bit casual, and a conference/journal paper should be very professional. Other than that, the
report is well-written and I believe that it could be publishable if given some revisions.