My Keepon

Product Description
My Keepon™ is an interactive robotic toy for kids of all ages. In its touch mode, it responds to pokes, pats, and tickles with a rich variety of emotional movements and sounds. My Keepon has two modes, selected with buttons on his "stage."

Dance mode: A built-in microphone and beat detection enables My Keepon to dance in time with the rhythm of clapping or music.

Touch mode: My Keepon has invisible sensors underneath his textured skin. These sensors allow My Keepon to react to any type of touch. My Keepon's reaction and mood changes in response to your touch, with emotions ranging from curious, to excited or sleepy.

The Science Bit
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Kyoto developed the robot My Keepon. In the design phrase of a the therapeutic robot, they kept in mind that any robot for remedial applications for autistic children should be as simple as possible, because robots that can perform complex behaviour would convey too much meaning to children, which would be likely to overwhelm and frighten them.

Over 500 child-sessions were conducted with My Keepon during a year and a half period. This study recorded the live interactions between Keepon and the children from the perspective of Keepon. This gave the reviewers the ability to analyse recordings of interactions both from the subjective viewpoint of Keepon as well as the first person of the interaction.

Despite having a very simple appearance and a rather small gamut of possible actions, Keepon proved to be able to sufficiently exchange attention and display emotional states. This made it easy for autistic children to approach and relate to Keepon spontaneously in a playful and relaxed mood.

In the longitudinal observations, the children showed various positive actions in relation to Keepon. Some of the children even showed vivid facial expressions that even their parents had not seen before. They also showed increased desire to interact in their actions; such as trying to feed Keepon, putting a cap on its head, and kissing it. As a whole, the observations suggest that children eith difficulty in interpersonal communication were able to approach to Keepon with curiosity and security.