The Joking Computer: An Interactive Language Playground

The Joking Computer project ran from February 2009 until October 2010, with funding from the EPSRC (Grant EP/G020280/1), under the Partnerships for Public Engagement scheme. It was based in the Natural Language Generation Group within Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen, with collaboration from the Glasgow Science Centre and Satrosphere.

The aim was to create an interactive exhibit, for use in science centres, based on the software built by the STANDUP project, and was related to the NLG Group's EPSRC-supported work on Affecting People with Natural Language. A further outcome was a website aimed at the general public, to provide information about this type of research in a very accessible way.

The staff involved at Aberdeen were:

• Judith Masthoff (principal investigator)
• Graeme Ritchie (co-investigator/researcher)
• Mukta Aphale (research assistant, Feb 2009-Dec 2009)
• Feng Gao (research assistant, Jan 2010-Sept 2010)
• Wendy Moncur (research assistant, May 2010-Sept 2010)

Publicity about this project

Downloadable software