Get Ready

Programming a humanoid

How does it work? 
At 10am(MYT) on 27th April 2022 teams of students from FOBISIA schools will be set an Ohbot programming challenge. Teams will have one hour to plan, write, test and debug a program to solve the challenge using robot simulations. Competition judges will then test each program live on a physical robot and award points. The highest scoring team will receive the award of Fobisia Robotics Champion 2022.

Timings

• 10:00-10:30 Hello humans and challenge setting
• 11:00-12:00 Challenge in teams
• 12:30 Performance time
• 13:00-14:00 Scoring and awards 

For the competition day each team will need

• A Windows computer with online access, the Ohbot App installed, speakers and a microphone. See the check your tech section for more on how to set up your teams computer. 
• Your team's login for Ohbiverse so that you can submit your program. Your team coach will have received the login details for this.    
• Access to the YouTube stream for the event.  We will email your coach with a link for this.
• To be ready to write a program for the challenge.

Check your tech

A computer running Windows 10 or 11

You will need a computer running Windows 10 or 11. To check the version of Windows you are running click Win + S and type About your PC. 

Ohbot App installed on the computer

To compete you will need to write programs using the Ohbot app. Check that you have the app installed on your computer. 

​Click for instructions on how to install it.

Help: [email protected]

Ohbot App icon

Sound from speakers is working

Your team will need to be able to hear Ohbot speech. To check this add the blocks shown to the right to the scripting area in the Ohbot App and press the Space key. If you hear Ohbot say 'hello' then your sound is working.

Doesn't work?
Press Win + S and search for online speech recognition in Windows. There are settings here that may need to be adjusted to hear sound from the speakers.
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Help: [email protected]

Computer is online

As your team will need to use speech recognition and submit a program to our online space called Ohbiverse make sure the machine you write your program on is online.

Online Speech Recognition is enabled in Windows

In order to use speech recognition you will need to have online speech recognition enabled. This is a setting in Windows. 

To enable online speech recognition Press Win + S keys to bring up Windows search. Type in online speech recognition and press enter. Set the switch to On.

Help: [email protected]
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Microphone is connected and working

Many computers have built in microphones that can be used to detect speech.

To check that a microphone on your computer is working 

1. Press Win + S and search for Sound Settings in Windows.
2. On the sound settings window look at the Input section.
3. Speak or tap on the microphone, you should see the blue line next to the microphone icon move with the volume of sound. If it does your mic is working.

​If it doesn't click the Troubleshoot option to select a different microphone or troubleshoot.  

Single word speech recognition is working

There are two types of speech recognition in the Ohbot App. The first type is Single Word. To use it use the When [word to be sensed] word heard event block. The block will be triggered when the word is heard. 

How to check it is working: 

In the Ohbot App add the blocks shown on the right to the scripting area. When you speak the word 'Hello' into the microphone Ohbot's eyes (in the simulation) should turn on red for 1 second.

If it doesn't work and you have already checked your microphone is working in Windows then within the app click on Sensor in the Settings menu.

Dictation speech recognition is working

​The second type of speech recognition, called Dictation listens for a longer period (up to 10 seconds) and returns all the words sensed as a value for the Answer variable.

To check it is working:

1. ​Assemble the blocks on the right.
2. Press Space key. Look at the bottom of the screen. You should see that the bar displays Listening: and as you speak a timer bar moves across indicating that speech is being sensed. The text of the spoken words will appear as they are spoken in the neighbouring box. 
3. These words are saved as the Answer variable. 

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Your team is able to upload a program to Ohbiverse

Have your Ohbiverse login ready. 

Within the Ohbot App on the Ohbiverse Menu select Upload. This will open a browser window.

Select Log in and enter your details.

Select Share

Sample Challenge

You are developing a helpful robot assistant that will listen for an instruction when it hears the wakeword 'Listen'.

Write a program so that Ohbot can answer spoken questions about the time:
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• It should tell you the time
• It should have a countdown timer
• It should be able to tell you when dinner time is

Questions may be spoken in any order.

Click on the section below to see one possible solution. 

Choosing a Wakeword

This event is triggered when the word 'Hello' is sensed. 

​The word recognised can be changed.

To add a new word to recognise> settings> sensor. 

Click on the words box and enter a comma and then the word you would like recognised, for example 'Listen'

Select the word 'listen' from the list.

Recognising words in an instruction

Here are two different ways of recognising what instruction is being asked. 

Awake and asleep

Here's a way of making Ohbot move whilst speaking and 'sleep' when not. 

Lip synch and blinking

Synchronising lip movements with speech

Blinking

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