NAO, The Humanoid Robot Helps Students Master Handwriting Skills
智能机器人指导书写
Just a few weeks ago, NAO, the humanoid robot made headlines when it became Mitsubishi Bank's first non-human employee. Now the cute 23-inch tall robot that weighs a mere 5.5 kilograms (12.7 pounds) is in the news again. This time around NAO is helping students develop good handwriting skills.
就在几周前，NAO智能机器人成为三菱银行第一位非人类职员的消息备受热议。现在，这个高23英尺，重量只有5.5kg(12.8磅)的可爱机器人又再一次引起人们的注意。这次的新闻主要是有关NAO帮助学生矫正字体。
What's interesting about the NAO CoWriter is that it teaches kids while pretending to learn writing skills from them. The process begins with a student showing NAO alphabet magnets of the word they want it to write. The cute robot carefully studies the Quick Response (QR) codes assigned to each alphabet and then tries to write them on a digital tablet. The assignment is then handed to the "teacher" who makes the appropriate corrections and returns it to the robot for a redo. NAO CoWriter tries again, using the corrections to improve. The duo continues until the "teacher" is satisfied with his/her robot student's penmanship.
NAO CoWriter有趣的地方是通过模拟让孩子们纠正它的书写的方法来帮助孩子改进。首先，学生会展示给NAO他们想写单词的磁性的字母；随后，它会认真研究每个字母上的二维码，然后试着在平板上写出来。平板上的作业由“老师”批改后，再返还给机器人订正。NAO CoWriter这时会按照“老师”的批改再次拼写改正。这个过程会一直持续，直到“老师”满意机器人学生的书写为止。
Researchers believe that this innovative role reversal not only improves the student's handwriting skills but also helps boost his/her confidence. Of course, while NAO appears quite the novice learner to the students who range from six to eight years in age, the activity is carefully orchestrated.
研究者相信这种角色互换不仅能帮助学生改进书写，还能增加他们的信心。虽然，NAO比6-8岁的学生表现稍差一点，但整个演示过程还是比较和谐的。
Unveiled on March 3rd at a Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), held in Portland, Oregon, the NAO CoWriter is still in the prototype stage. While the classroom trials to test the long-term effectiveness of its mathematical algorithms were successful, there is still more to be done. In the upcoming summer months, further tests will be conducted to measure the robot's success in the learning process and also to see if it is user-friendly enough to be incorporated into a daily classroom routine. If all goes well, NAO may become an even more frequent sight at schools around the world. Buckle up! School is about to get more exciting!
NAO CoWriter在3月3日俄勒冈州波特兰举行的HRI大会上首次亮相，现在处于初始发展阶段。虽然在课堂上测试它算法的长期可行性进展比较顺利，对于在孩子学习过程中的有效性检测和是否能够用在日常教学中这两点，还有待进一步检测。如果一切顺利，NAO将在全球学校中广泛应用。所以，让我们对更加有趣的课堂拭目以待吧。
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