Whitehouse Features Student Robots

Control Systems Lab robot meets Vice President Joe Biden.

Recently, the White House participated in “Hour of Code,” the online event that encouraged students to participate in the art, science, and engineering behind computer coding. During the event, University of Maryland’s (UMD’s) Control Systems Lab robot NAO (pronounced “now”) was introduced to Vice President Joe Biden.


NAO dances for STEM Students and Whitehouse staff.

NAO is a critical part of UMD’s CoderDojo chapter, a volunteer organization that teaches kids between the ages of 7 and 17 how to program games, robots, websites, apps, and other technologies. NAO also participates in UMD mechanical engineering research in teleoperations and control.

The CoderDojo and Hour of Code STEM initiatives are very important to the engineering community. They help inspire the next generation of software, mechatronic, and mechanical engineers. Now that the organization, and similar organizations in the New York and New Jersey area, has met VP Biden that inspiration can only grow.

University of Maryland, Mechanical Engineering grad student Bryan Hays volunteers with CoderDojo. His work teaching students to program NAO can inspire those students to code for anything in the future, from satellites to manufacturing plant robots.

“The kids put together programs on their laptops, and then run the programs on the robot to control his actions and interactions,” Hays said. “They get to have fun learning. They are encouraged by their ability to build programs in the digital realm and see the robot bring their work to life in the physical world.”

Source University of Maryland

Written by

Shawn Wasserman

For over 10 years, Shawn Wasserman has informed, inspired and engaged the engineering community through online content. As a senior writer at WTWH media, he produces branded content to help engineers streamline their operations via new tools, technologies and software. While a senior editor at Engineering.com, Shawn wrote stories about CAE, simulation, PLM, CAD, IoT, AI and more. During his time as the blog manager at Ansys, Shawn produced content featuring stories, tips, tricks and interesting use cases for CAE technologies. Shawn holds a master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Guelph and an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.