Opie robot UQ
Interacting with OPIE

The OPAL project is a collaboration between engineering, computer science, psychology, interaction design, and robotics with the aim of building social robots for studying human-robot interaction, communication and social engagement.

The project is funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL), a research centre that aims to investigate all aspects of language. 
 
The project was inspired by the RUBI project at UCSD and early prototypes were given the name "Opie".

Robots

OPAL researchers with Lingaroid
OPAL researchers with Lingaroid

 

 

 

Dr Scott Heath at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language

Carlos Ramirez at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language

David Ferris at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language

 

Publications

  • Heath, S., Durantin, G., Boden, M., Hensby, K., Taufatofua, J., Olsson, O., ... & Wiles, J. (2017). Spatiotemporal Aspects of Engagement during Dialogic Storytelling Child–Robot Interaction. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 4, 27. Read full article
  • Worthy, P., Boden, M., Karimi, A., Weigel, J., Matthews, B., Hensby, K., ... & Viller, S. (2015). Children's Expectations and Strategies in Interacting with a Wizard of Oz Robot. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction (pp. 608-612). ACM. Read full article
  • Wiles, J. et al (2016). Social Cardboard: Pretotyping a social ethnodroid in the wild. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Human Robot Interaction. ACM/IEEE. Read full article
  • Hensby, K. et al (2016). Hand in hand: Tools and techniques for understanding children's touch with a social robot. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Human Robot Interaction. ACM/IEEE. Read full article
  • Rogers, K. et al (2016). Discovering Patterns of Touch: A Case Study for Visualization-Driven Analysis in Human-Robot Interaction In Proceedings of the International Conference on Human Robot Interaction. ACM/IEEE. Read full article.  
  • Heath, S. et al (2016). Lingodroids: Investigating grounded color relations using a social robot for children. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Human Robot Interaction. ACM/IEEE. Read full article.

Get in touch

For more information about this project, please get in touch:

Professor Janet Wiles 
e: j.wiles@uq.edu.au 

Project members

Academic Staff

Professor Janet Wiles

Professor
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Research Staff

Mr Carlos Ramirez, Research Assistant 

Dr Kristyn Sommer, Post-doctoral Research Fellow

Alumni

  • Dr Gautier Durantin
  • Dr Scott Heath
  • Dr Ola Olsson