Dancing robots as educational toys

March 23, 2007 10:05 AM

Keepon and Roillo are two robots designed for non-verbal interaction with children. Keepon is shaped approximately like a snowman, with two cameras for eyes and a microphone for a nose. After one bar of music, he starts getting down in his robotic-type fashion. (two videos that need flash are the attraction here)
posted by mkb (13 comments total)

OOOOH I want!

I want that in the dj booth of every gig I have.
posted by empath at 10:27 AM on March 23, 2007

That is one funky robot.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:30 AM on March 23, 2007

Seriously, it seems like it is having just the best time. I absolutely love it. If they put that in stores tomorrow they'd sell a million of them.
posted by empath at 10:33 AM on March 23, 2007

That's just wrong.

I love it.
posted by eriko at 10:49 AM on March 23, 2007

The drum video was unimpressive. The Spoon video rocked my world. I'd swear that little thing is actually feeling the beat.

Stupid little yellow piece of shit.
/jealous 'cause he can't feel the beat
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 10:50 AM on March 23, 2007

Now that's what i call a sockpuppet.
posted by phaedon at 10:56 AM on March 23, 2007

The drum one is pretty bad--the thing isn't moving to the beat. The spoon is much better, but all in all I think Soul Train is a much better way to learn to dance.
posted by tula at 11:20 AM on March 23, 2007

Oh, awesome! I went to a conference in early February, where Hideki Kozima talked about his research with Keepon.

He talked about using Keepon to help study the behaviour of autistic children, and presented a neat hypothesis about how autistic children are inundated by the sheer number of social signals to decode, becoming unwilling to interact with others as a result. In comparison, Keepon has a very limited number of actions (tracking gaze, bouncing up and down, tilting its head side-to-side, vibrating), so it may be able to help autistic children get the kind of social interaction that they may need.

We got to see some video clips of children, both autistic and non-autistic, interacting with Keepon. My favourite clip? The one where the non-autistic boys would beat on Keepon and play with it aggressively, whereas the girls would pet it and try to take care of it ("Boys are like that..."). Very endearing.
posted by tickingclock at 11:22 AM on March 23, 2007

White people play with their dancing robots like this and black people pay with their dancing robots like this.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:36 AM on March 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

If they put that in stores tomorrow they'd sell a million of them.

For sure. Keepon could totally be this year's hot Christmas toy.
posted by peep at 1:21 PM on March 23, 2007

Lookout! Robots Got the Boogy!

I want one more than I want my pancreas.
posted by Freen at 2:45 PM on March 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

Have not yet watched video, but already know I want one.

/frequently has crushes on robot.
posted by infinitywaltz at 3:14 PM on March 23, 2007

CUTEST. ROBOT. EVER.
posted by bshort at 4:08 PM on March 23, 2007