What is it about Keepon the dancing robot that makes autistic children and teenagers keepon playing with it?
Marek Michalowski, a research and doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University who co-created Keepon with his mentor Hideki Kozima, says it’s all about simplicity and the ease of understanding Keepon.
“The idea behind this robot is that it is so simple that they can easily understand the attention and the emotion that it expresses,” said Michalowski.
Indeed watching Keepon may make some of us a little dizzy, but Michalowksi insists children feel more comfortable with the robot instead of people, thus making it easier for them to laugh, smile, and express a whole host of emotions they couldn’t before. In other words, Keepon gets them in the mood.
“Just because they are diagnosed with autism doesn’t mean that they aren’t intelligent. They’re very intelligent. It is just kind of lost in their own mind, and with the robot, it brings it out and it shows the connection,” said Autism Society CEO Michelle Johnson.
Michalowski has developed his own company, BeatBots, LLC., so Keepon may be coming to a toy store near you soon.
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