Just suppose if I say that a Robot will take your class in the classroom by delivering a lecture and taking question-answer session, it sounds good and makes us feel happy and get interested to join such class, but it is tough to believe in such mesmerizing and feel good imagination.
But Yes; it is true and quite possible and we are very close to having such mesmerizing and feel-good imagination in our real life. It was made possible by a simple school teacher; Mr. Dinesh Patel a Computer Science Teacher in Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Bombay, India. Who developed the “First social-educational humanoid Robot of the world that can speak 9 Indian and 38 foreign languages”, and named her as “SHALU”, he uses to call her “*(@ RoboShalu”.
By doing such wonderful work he became “World’s First School teacher who developed such Robot by their one at home”, which is very much comparable with Robot “Sophia” a sophisticated robot developed by Hong-Kong-based robotics company “Hanson Robotics”.
Development of Robot “Shalu” :
India is a developing country where Robotics is still lagging because of the lack of availability of Robotics components, 3D printed parts, and good quality motors. Even less recognition too.
Despite all these, if a school teacher (who is not a Robotics Scientist) can do something in the field and became able to develop a prototype which is comparable with the Robots developed by a big facilitated and resourceful companies with the help of sophisticated laboratories with their best engineers on a very big budget, definitely, liable to a different big appreciation and support for their further work in improvement.
After seeing the Bollywood movie “Robot” acted by Mr. Rajnikant as “Chitti”, he thought; is it possible to make such a robot behaving like this reel life robot Chitti in real life, afterward by seeing Sophia Robot he decided to work on this, but he faced many challenges such as how to start? from where he can purchase parts? But unable to find any solution, then he decided that he will work on his dream with the readily available item in the local market and started thing how it may be possible, what kind of item can be used for which purpose; after figuring out all the possibilities; he started his work. He was already inspired by the honorable prime minister of India’s dream mission “Digital India Mission”, “Skill India Mission” and “Make in India Mission”.
He started coding himself only alone and developed most of the robot module by himself in Python and C programming languages, after reaching a satisfying level in coding, he started working on the physical component of the robot i.e. robot body, he purchased all materials from the local market which is readily available but not for robotics purpose such as plastic, aluminum, cardboard, wood, etc. and did all drilling, cutting and molding work to give proper shape by their own at home in his all free scratch time after the job especially in the night. When the world is taking a rest; he was working for giving shape to his dream.
With so many trials and errors by ups and downs, fails and success, finally, after 03 years he succeeded and developed his lovely soft-spoken, multitalented, multilingual Robot “Shalu”. She is capable of speaking 09 Indian languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, Bangla, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Nepali) in addition to English along with 38 foreign languages viz. German, Japanese, France, duct, Italian, etc.
Shalu has diverse set of capabilities some of as follows :
Face recognition, remembering person after meeting – She can remember a person after meeting and can recognize in the next meeting just like a human.
Identifying multiple common objects – She is capable to identify many objects available around us such as a computer, laptop, TV, mobile, bottle, book, bus, etc.
Social Talk – She can have a social casual talk on predefined contents like “Sophia” Robot using Artificial Intelligence by listening not only to sentence but understanding the meaning of the conversation.
Human behavior and gesture – She can demonstrate human behavior and gesture viz. Shaking hand, laughing, anger, and irritation.
Reading Current News: She can readout current daily news from different newspapers.
Reading Horoscope: Shalu can ready daily horoscope based on the date of birth of the individual.
Weather Report – She can forecast the weather report for the next 10 days place-wise date-wise.
Sunset and Sunrise time at different places.
Interesting facts of any numbers or date – She can tell some interesting facts about a number or a date.
Jokes – She can tell jokes on demand.
Guess the word – She can guess a word by providing a few letters of the world.
Synonyms/Opposite – She is capable to tell synonyms and the opposite of an English word.
Telling the location of any famous historical place for example India gate, the gateway of India, etc.
Many information replated any country such as area, the population of any country, border countries of any country, their capitals, prime minister/president/monarch of the country, so on.
Answering the educational questions – She is capable to answer educational questions based on Physics, Chemistry Maths, History, Geography, GK, etc. which usually students asking during their study in the classroom.
Authors/writers of famous books.
About famous movies and actors of the movie.
Currencies and their current time in different countries.
Location of any country on earth (latitude/longitude).
Current location of the International space center and the number of scientists currently in the space center.
Address of any post office based on PIN.
Lecture – She is capable to give lectures and presentations in the classroom or seminars.
Math Problem solution – She is capable to understand simple math questions as well as equations and answer such as Time-Speed-Distance, Simple/Compound Interest, equation calculation, LCM/GCF, Factors, Prime numbers, Armstrong numbers, etc.
She can ask multiple-choice questions based on the topic discussed
She can read and reply to email and send SMS.
Click a picture and send it on pre-stored or specified new mail ID.
And my more…
Use of Robot Shalu in daily life :
Robo Shalu can be used in so many different ways, for example –
Shalu as a Teacher “RoboTeacher”-
She can be used with the existing human teacher in the classroom to support in teaching-learning process in a school as a companion of a subject teacher in the classroom to deliver the theoretical lecture based on PPT uploaded by the teacher, answer the question of students, evaluate the students by asking multiple-choice questions. Where students must like to study with Robots and will be motivated towards the study.
Shalu as an Office worker -
She can work as a Receptionist at different places for example airports, Schools, and many offices to answer the different queries based on their organization not only verbal even through email too. She is also capable to send SMS.
Shalu as a companion at home-
Now the day family is nuclear and life is very fast, everybody is rushing earn money, nobody becomes available to have gossip to old age citizens as well as young growing children at home, here Shalu may be used as a companion of them at home to entertain them and emerging them from loneliness.
Shalu as a Motivator :
Robot Shalu may be an example to motivate so many future robotic young, energetic, and passionate scientists who can do far better in Robotics. It may set an example that Robotics Research can be done at home as a hobby also in absence of technical facilities and sophisticated laboratories.