FHU Computer Science Students Teach AI Robots to Play Hide and Seek

It was a final project full of fun, experimentation and laughter. Seven students in Dr. Ben Clark's AI for Robotics class put weeks worth of research into determining if three robots could "play" a game of hide and seek effectively on May 4.

The students organized in three teams - Bryce Greene, Allison Walker and Brigitte Turner worked together to program the robot they named Kenan Jr (after another Computer Science faculty member Dr. Kenan Casey). Their robot's objective was to "seek" the other two robots that were "hiding." Decked out with two heart shaped stickers at its back, Kenan Jr. and the other robots, Baymacs and R0B, are Create 3 robots, educational versions of the popular household vacuum appliance, the Roomba.

Dallas Yarnell and Sean Janiec worked on R0B and were part of the mapping team, which determined the area where the robots could hide. "We used a technique called SLAM (Simultaneous, Localization and Mapping). It basically helps the robots play hide and seek," Yarnell said. Students Lou Joseph and Addison Adcock were on the path planning team and were responsible for Baymacs.