Over at KinectHacks, Bener Suay used his Kinect to control the Nao robot! The robot mimics his moves, using his initial location and arm height as the origin of a coordinate system. I find this really interesting because it is so amazing to see a little robot copying what a man is doing. This is probably as close as we are to Avatars.

Critique

His calibration moves are so broad and clumsy. Perhaps there are more subtle moves he could do and correctly observe with the Kinect to turn on the robot and its motors? Maybe even mimic how the robot slumps then rises, so there is complete visual continuity between the two of them. This suggests that the Kinect is pretty solid when it comes to positioning. It looks like more projects could be done on the assumption that the Kinect knows where the origin is, and it does not lose it.

– Ward