HCRI has opened a new a new space on the 8th floor of the Sciences Library. This space contains two new areas for robotics research on campus. These spaces are as follows.
HRI Lab:
The Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Lab is another new addition to the HCRI. The HRI lab is a simulated smart living room environment, that will be equipped with Kinect motion sensors, camera equipment, and humanoid robots, among others. This room will be used for testing everything from toy robots for the elderly to developing next generation ethical frameworks for robots.
The HCRI envisions a future in which robots in the home are a ubiquitous part of everyday life. As such, the HRI lab serves as a space to study near future human-robot interaction in household environments. We hope to use this space to better understand the types of interactions people would prefer with robots and improve the utility of robots in these types of environments.
IOT/Robotics Lab:
The new HCRI space also features the Robotics/Internet of Things (IOT) lab. Here students can take advantage of a sandbox style makerspace that gives the campus community a place to learn by creating. The lab features a variety of equipment that can be used to prototype robots and IOT devices. It joins the Brown Design Workshop and the Cogut Physical Media Lab as a campus robot building space.
The build space in the IOT/Robotics lab includes soldering stations, a 3D printer, a PCB CNC, embedded computers, basic electronics supplies and everything needed to get a project from ideation to prototype. HCRI has sponsored the supplies in the lab giving students an area where they can easily build a low cost prototype and not have to worry about where to find the parts online.
Brown University Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative 