Page 144 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

Mobile Robotic Toys and Autism 127

messages generated by the robots. Each session lasted around one hour and a
half, allowing eight to ten children to play with the robots. No special attention
was put on trial length for each child, since our goal was to let all the children
of the class play with the robots in the allocated time slot.
As expected, each child had his or her own ways of interacting with the
robots. Some remained seated on the floor, looking at the robot and touching
it when it came close to them (if the robot moved to a certain distance, some
children just stopped looking at the robot). Others moved around, approaching
and touching the robots and sometimes showing signs of excitation. It is very
hard to generalize the results of these tests since each child is so different.
In addition, the mood of some of the children that participated to all of these
sessions was not always the same. But one thing that we can say is that the
robots surely caught the attention of the children, making them smile, laugh or
react vocally. In general, we did not observe particular attention to the front
of the robots (e.g., trying to make eye contact), mostly because most of them
have devices all around them. To give a more precise evaluation of our tests,
we present observations made with some of the robots used in these trials:
Jumbo. This elephant has a moving head and trunk, one pyroelectric sensor
and an infrared range sensor. Jumbo is programmed to move toward the child
and to stop at a distance of 20 cm. Once close to the child, Jumbo asks the
child to touch one of the three buttons associated with pictograms located on
its back. LEDs are used at first to help the child locate the right pictogram, but
eventually the LEDs are not used. If the child is successful, Jumbo raises its
trunk and plays some music (Baby’s Elephant Walk or Asterix the Gaulish).
If the child is not responding, the robot asks to play and can try to reposition
itself in front of the child. Pictograms on the robot can be easily replaced.
This robot revealed to be very robust, even though its pyroelectric lenses got
damaged too. One child liked to push the robot around when it was not moving,
as shown in Figure 15.1, or to make the robot stay close to her if it was moving
away. The pictogram game was also very nice, but children were pressing on
the pictograms instead of on the buttons. The music played and movements of
the trunk were also very appreciated by the children.
Roball. Roball [3] is a spherical robot capable of navigating in all kind of
environments without getting stuck somewhere or falling on the side. Interac-
tions can be done using vocal messages and movement patterns like spinning,
shaking or pushing. The majority of children were trying to catch Roball, to
grab it or to touch the robot. Some even made it spin (but not always when
requested by Roball though). One boy, who did not interact much with almost
all of the other robots presented, went by himself in order to play with Roball.
One of the games he played was to make the robot roll on the floor between
his arms, as shown in Figure 15.2, and eventually let it go forward by itself.