NAO European Tour 2012 continues its road. It was in Denmark a few days ago, for an interesting session with lots of participants!

"Hello! My name is NAO. How are you today"?
Tuesday 13th November 2012, the Technical School Network and the Technological Institute in collaboration with ScienceTalenter and Aldebaran Robotics organized an afternoon in company with the NAO- robot. NAO was the focal point for an exciting and eventful day, and a crowd of participants was welcomed in. The event addressed the headmasters, teachers and counselors with an interest in the use of robotics in education.

Today’s ceremony took place in an inspiring environment, at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller's Knowledge Center in Sorø, which first opened its doors on the 5th August 2009, with facilities for new talents throughout Denmark, in particular from the Sorø Academy School.

The centre provided a framework for inspiration, learning and knowledge about scientific topics, in which talent manager Hanne Hautop passionately talked about at the start. The word was then given to the Technological Institute, Robotics’ and Aldebaran Robotics’ teams.

Aldebaran Robotics is behind the development of the humanoid robot NAO, which is fully interactive and motivating. NAO motivates and spreads joy when responding to specific commands. He is alive and can move in ways you would think impossible for a robot. NAO currently is the market leader in advanced humanoid robotics technology. NAO’s potential as teaching tools makes it possible to capture children's and young people's attention. NAO is now used in several ways, including as a learning tool in many studies and for students at different levels - from the challenges of the very talented students, to the inclusion of students with special academic and social needs.

Michaël Laurac from Aldebaran Robotics demonstrated to the assembly, how NAO is programmed. There were several questions about how visual programming can be used by primary school children without programming experience to intuitively program NAO. There was a great enthusiasm for how easy it really is to program and communicate with NAO. The young chap can turn the mood in the positive direction in no time as it is able to tell stories, dance, play, walk, practice mathematical tables, etc. in lower grades and react almost humanly to its surroundings. NAO also spreads laughter across the room as it was forced out of balance on a table, whereupon it exclaimed: "Ouch!"

The only thing required is to program in the style of, for example, LEGO Mindstorms, with which several schools already have good experience. Programming NAO is a simple system of drag and drop modules. Modules can be added, the text NAO can pronounce simply needs to be typed in. Other modules are already installed, such as sitting down, standing up, walking, etc. and are graphically referred thanks to their corresponding box.

Stine Caspersen, headteacher of science at Ryslinge School and participant of the event said: “what occurred to me when I first saw NAO is the way this little wonder can solve motivational problems. What is important to me is that from now on, I can use my students’ and my own experience, acquired with LEGO Mindstorm, to further work with NAO, and thus generate much more interest for my students, with regards to the development and the understanding of future technologies.

Lykke Brogaard Bertel is an industrial researcher at the Technological Institute, Robotics, dealing with therapeutic technologies and NAO is part of her work. Lykke talked about her experience with the lively young chap. She has been on a field study in a classroom where she studied children's ability to use interactive technology. Her visit to the school gave her a clear idea about how children generally accepted technologies and how they are typically quicker than adults to adopt and use technology.

Søren Ranthe, headteacher at the Antvorskov School told us about his school’s experience with NAO, which was used as part of a development program with six selected students who showed interest in technology. In August, Søren Ranthe decided to invest in a NAO robot, believing in the potential of the six students in class. Students presented their assignments, which were to program NAO to count and will benefit to third grade students from the same school. Their challenge with programming was not as severe as they initially thought, and at this time they have seen more with NAO than their teacher has.

The most exciting part of the day occurred later in the afternoon: the hands-on workshops with NAO, when all participants could test their programming skills. It turned out that programming the robot was easy and understandable, so the biggest challenge was to take advantage of NAO’s endless possibilities. We completed the information-rich and exciting day with a roundtable focusing on impressions, desires and input of the event. The majority of participants expressed that the day had been a day beyond all expectations, and several of the participants were prepared to adopt the NAO robot.

For more information about NAO in Denmark, please contact Britt Sørensen, Robotteknologi, 72.20.28.58 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Download Lykke Brogaard Bertel's research introduction
Find more pictures of the event on NAO Academics fanpage