Page 145 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

128 Socially Intelligent Agents

C-Pac. C-Pac is a very robust robot that has removable arms and tail. These
removable parts use connectors that have different geometrical shape (star, tri-
angle, hexagon). When successfully assembled, the robot thanks the child and
rotates by itself. The robot also asks the child to make it dance by pressing its
head. The head then becomes illuminated, and music (La Bamba) is played
as the robot dances, and this was very much appreciated by children. C-Pac
also has a moving mouth, eyes made of LEDs, an infrared range sensor and
pyroelectric sensors to stay close to the child. Children learned rapidly how
to play with this robot, even understanding by themselves how to assemble the
robot, as shown in Figure 15.3. The removable parts became toys on their own.
Children were also surprised when they grabbed the robot by its arms or tail,
expecting to grab the robot but instead removing the part from the robot. Note
however that the pyroelectric lenses got damaged by the children, and one even
took off the plastic cup covering one eye of the robot and tried to ate it.
Bobus. Extremely robust, this robot can detect the presence of a child us-
ing pyroelectric sensors. It then slowly moves closer to the child, and when
close enough it does simple movements and plays music. Simple requests
(like touching) are made to the child and if the child responds at the appropri-
ate time, light effects are generated using the LEDs all around the ‘neck’ of the
robot, and the small ventilator on its head is activated. Very robust, this robot
is the only one with pyroelectric senses that did not get damaged. Two little
girls really liked the robot, enjoying the light effects, the moving head with the
ventilator, and the different textures. Figure 15.4 illustrates one of these girls
showing signs of excitation when playing with Bobus. At one point, one girl
lifted the robot and was making it roll on its side on top of her legs. She then
put the robot on the floor and was making it roll on its side using her legs again,
but by lying on top of the robot.

Figure 15.1. Pushing Jumbo around the Figure 15.2. Rolling game with Roball.
play area.

One very interesting observation was made with a 10 years old girl. When
she enters the recreation room, she starts right away to follow the walls, and