Virtual TJBot

Introduce programming, cognitive technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) to students by helping them bring their own Virtual TJBot Robot to life!

Activity Duration

1 Hour

Preparation Time

1 – 2 Hours

Estimated Cost of Materials

no cost

Audience Age

11 – 19

Topic

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Languages

English

Details

This Activity Kit introduces students to cognitive technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) by helping them connect to a virtual TJBot robot. This virtual robot can be configured to use any available Watson™ cloud service such as Watson Assistant (chatbot), Speech to Text and Text to Speech. In addition to using existing programming recipes, students can unleash their creativity and create new recipes to bring the Virtual TJBot to life using Watson™ services. The Virtual TJBot uses the iPad to connect to Watson services and emulates the physical TJBot's behavior.

There is also a physical version of this Virtual TJBot Activity Kit where students create a physical robot out of cardboard and a Raspberry Pi. Please see additional information on the physical TJBot.

  • An IBM Cloud account for the instructor
  • iPads for students – One iPad per 3–4 students works well
  • The room must have powerpoint presentation capabilities

Instructions

1. Learn

  1. Review the TJBot Activity Kit Start Guide
  2. Learn about the origins of the Virtual TJBot and read some background to make getting started and facilitating the activity easy
  3. Explore the Virtual TJBot Swift Playground on Github

Virtual TJBot Swift Playground

About the Virtual TJBot

Facilitation Materials

Presentation deck

All Activity Kit Resources

IBM Cloud Account Information for Volunteers

IBM employees are encouraged to use their internal IBM Cloud accounts, which include all Lite services at no charge. IBM volunteers can also register for a Lite account following the link below. Questions can also be posted on the IBM Volunteers Slack channel.

Both IBM volunteers and non-IBM volunteers who require Cloud access beyond a Lite account are encouraged to request access to the IBM Citizenship Cloud by sending an email to citizenshipcloud@ibm.com with the following subject line “Citizenship Cloud Access.” In the body of the email, please outline what cloud resources you need and which Activity Kit will be used. Students will get appropriate access directly from their teachers. Volunteers who only require a Lite account do not need to ask for access to the IBM Citizenship Cloud.

Register for IBM Cloud

More information about IBM Cloud

More information on recent internal changes

Further learnings

TJBot Blogpost

Learn more about the original TJBot and the launch of the Virtual TJBot.

Data science and machine learning

Learn about machine learning techniques and how they are being applied to businesses today

Artificial Intelligence Today

Learn more about artificial intelligence (AI) on IBM Developer.