JS

Description

During several open-campus presentations we were surprised how kids react to robots, particularly to small robots that can exhibit a set of behaviours. Kids, and particularly toddlers, reacted very quickly assuming the robot to be a pet, a living being, not different from a dog or cat. They understood very quickly those behaviours and started to interact with the robot understanding what the robot seemed to want, or what was his behaviour about. These behaviours were:

• Yes nodding, no shaking: When the robot shaked sideways it was instantly interpreted as no, and shaking the head (tapping) was assumed as no.
• Twisting as joy: when the robot twisted 180 degrees it was assumed as joy.
• Moving around quickly as joy: when the robot moved around in circles back and forth.
• Petting: petting was very quickly undersand and the behaviour looking for petting.

Then the following question was posed: Is there a set of behaviours that universally understood in a small robot pet by kids that carry affective information?

This project aims to create a platform to perform experiments to study this question and how to characterize a robot-pet to achieve different reactions on kids, and concordently to study how kids react pet-robots and to ECAs (Embodied Conversational Agent)s.

Methodology

The first iteration we will create the platform that will allow us to perform the experiments.

Scope

At the beginning is just the robot itself, based on Parrot Jumping Sumo. Then we will try to use the robot to perform the first experiments.