PleoProg
Pleo robot project
PleoProg was a graphical tool for creating and editing personalities for the Pleo robotic dinosaur.
I built it as a student project at the University of Oviedo, where it received the highest honors distinction, Matrícula de Honor. The goal was to let people without programming or robotics knowledge design a diagram that represented a personality for Pleo to follow.
The application translated those diagrams into code executable by the robot, working like a small compiler for a domain-specific language built from the visual diagram and an intermediate XML representation.
What It Did
A small authoring environment for robot behavior.
PleoProg turned robot programming into a visual desktop workflow: users described behavior through diagrams, and the tool generated the files needed to run that behavior on Pleo.
Under the hood, the project used the Pleo Development Kit, the official toolkit released by the robot's manufacturer, to produce executable programs and reuse the resources available for enriching Pleo behaviors.
Why It Matters
A preserved early exploration of visual behavior authoring.
Pleo already had its own built-in personality, but changing what it did required technical knowledge. PleoProg made that space more approachable, especially for play and education, where visible, friendly results can make programming feel less abstract.
Looking back, it sits at an intersection I still care about: tools that make complex systems understandable, interfaces that invite experimentation, and software that gives people more direct control over creative work.
Materials
Project artifacts and references.
- Project report Original project PDF
- Source code GitHub repository coming soon