A small, arm-waving mechanical greeter will welcome incoming freshmen attending Alive! orientation this summer at Washington State University.

Built over two years by a couple groups of students, Roberto the Robot uses a Microsoft Kinect sensor to mimic arm movements, track bodies with his LED eye, and blurt out an occasional “Go Cougs!”

Roberto is about three feet tall, with spindly arms complete with human-like joints. A computer rests at his belly and the motion sensor at his chest. The head is made of lighted rings which alternate color and emit a computerized voice.

Academically, Roberto constitutes a capstone project using a degree’s worth of knowledge including programming, engineering and circuitry.

Ben Barton is a senior studying electrical engineering. Part of the four-person team working on Roberto, Barton said it took over six months to pass the basic set-up phase. This, he said, included writing algorithms, researching builds and problem solving.

“One of the fun problems was the lack of impact sensors on the arms,” Barton said, “All four of us have been punched by him.”

Barton and the rest of the team started mostly from scratch, although the group before them had laid a foundation for them, he said. This year, they had re-worked the codes, replaced the LED eye rings, and established 90 percent of the arm motions.

John Yates, systems and services manager for the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture said Roberto is part of an effort by the College to diversify the field and excite prospective students.

He said Roberto is a way to show that electrical engineering is more than just code and numbers, and attract more right-brained and female students to the field.

“Historically, women aren’t introduced to engineering,” Yates said, “We want all students’ attention.”

He stressed the importance of hands-on, cumulative experience for a field such as engineering.

“There’s too much information that’s not tied together,” Yates said, “We need students to look at the big picture.”

Scott Hanson, research operations manager for Voiland, sat at a computer beside Roberto, moving his cursor over a square on the screen. The same movements translated into ripples of light on a board of LED’s plugged into the computer.

“By taking our curriculum and making it more visually appealing, we can recruit that many more students,” Hanson said.

Yates and Barton said the next step is to integrate 3-D printed materials, instead of relying on nuts and bolts. In the future, Roberto may give way to a much more advanced entity.

“When we start marring Roberto to other things, we may someday have something totally autonomous,” Yates said.