Lindsay High School graduate Eduardo Arreola was like a lot of kids who grow up in small towns. He grew up reading science fiction novels such as “Robot Dreams” by Isaac Asimov and dreaming of what the world would be like with robots that could communicate with humans.

The difference between Arreola and other kids is that at 21 years of age, he has turned science fiction into scientific fact.

A senior at DeVry University in Fremont, Calif., Arroela recently presented his senior project, a two-legged robot that can recognize and respond verbally and physically to any spoken word, phrase or sentence in the English language. The robot, named AMI (Artificial Machine Intelligence) pronounced “Amy,” is the next step in artificial intelligence as it understands English regardless of the person talking.

“Ami is a software and hardware robot that has been programmed with 64,000 lines of code to recognize accents, draws and other modifications of the language,” Arreola said. “No two people say ‘Hello' the same so the software is robust and had to have a large lexicon to make it highly accurate.”

Responding to voice commands, Ami is able to do many physical things such as walk backwards and forwards and perform several pushups, which are significant achievements for a bipedal robot. “Ami can also recognize colors and track movement, like following your hand.”

Arreola and his team of seniors, including Perseo Gonzalez and Feras Khatib, were the first to worked through countless sleepless nights and several mental breakdowns over the course of a year to marry artificial intelligence, voice recognition software and Bluetooth technology for the project.

“Every step in artificial intelligence is small step building on existing knowledge,” Arreola said. “AI is still in its infancy and is a problem so large that not even the greatest scientists of today can solve.”

The probability of failure was extremely high for Arreola and his team, but he was lucky enough to find two other people “crazy enough” to follow him. Arreola said professors and classmates doubted him and one professor even called him up in front of class and made him explain how he was going to do it, as if to call his bluff.

“I got up in front of class and talked about exactly what I was going to do in detail,” Arreola said. “I think it surprised him a bit, but my philosophy is that if you put your mind to it then it is possible.”

Arreola said he was intimidated by the project when he began, so he contacted some of the world's leading artificial intelligence scientists to ask them for guidance.

“I told them I was afraid of being wrong, but most of them responded and said that no one knows the answers and that there are probably more than one solution to any given problem. That really gave me the confidence to try it.”

A 2004 graduate of Lindsay High School, Arreola said he began reading science fiction novels at the age of 6 and tried to build his first robot when he was 16.

“My interest in robotics was initially out of laziness,” Arreola said. “I was already taking apart my toys to find out how they worked and my dad was always interrupting me to mow the lawn. So I attempted to build a remote control lawnmower. My dad probable knew that I was going to fail, but he allowed my to try and was supportive.”

During his senior year at LHS, Arreola built his first successful robot that could roll forward until it sensed an obstacle in its path, turn around and head the other way automatically.

“I have always been fascinated by electronics and robots,” Arreola said. “This is what I felt like I was born to do.”

While Arreola has helped articial intelligence take the next step, he still dreams of future breakthroughs that will lead to a world not unlike the science fiction he read as a child.

“I think someday we will have robots that walk on two legs and pick up our garbage cans,” he said. “These machines will be able to help us do things we can't or won't do.”

Arreola said he hopes his accomplishment is an inspiration to other students in Lindsay to work hard and follow their dreams, no matter how big or farfetched they seem. He said the key is staying in school, going to college and remembering it doesn't matter where you grow up, but where your dreams can take you.

“Programs like FFA and others aren't for everyone,” he said. “Figure out what you love to do and follow your dreams. There will be failures but you have to keep trying.”

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