On Tuesday, February 2, 2016, KEN made an appearance at ECPI University in Raleigh, NC.  Tony Gonzalez, an engineering student at ECPI, organized the event to promote IEEE student membership and the formation of a new IEEE student branch at ECPI.  The event was well attended with 59 participants including students, professors, and organizers.  The IEEE Humanoid Robot Project was invited to present KEN as an illustration of some of the activities that are happening through IEEE in Eastern North Carolina.

After an overview of IEEE and student membership benefits by Tony, Daniel demonstrated KEN.  Maria Hunter also provided an overview of The Forge Initiative and our collaboration on the Humanoid Robot project.  The meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes, and the formal presentation was completed in that time; however, audience questions and interaction continued for another 40 minutes, making it a very exciting and interactive event.

One downside to the event was that KEN’s look around behavior was not functioning.  Investigation by the team at our weekly project meeting the following night determined that the micro-USB plug which powers one of the Raspberry Pi computers was not making a reliable connection and will need to be replaced.