Sustainable and cost-effective social robots for AI education

Sustainable and cost-effective social robots for AI education

Social robots are an accessible and tangible way of introducing and learning core STEM skills whilst keeping up to date with the latest technological developments. However, a key challenge is developing social robots that are affordable, reliable and sustainable in the long term. As a result, progress in this area is limited due to poor resources, accessibility, high costs and a lack of quality learning materials. For example, expensive commercial social humanoid robots have many system constraints such as proprietary software, limited availability, poor adaptability, and costly maintenance. On the other hand, lower-cost options are usually more toy-like and lack the level of sophistication needed for good quality learning materials. This disparity has created a bottleneck as the growing interest and demand for state-of-the-art social robotics systems for industry and research cannot be sustained in the long term without a solid foundation in education. My research explores the development of low-cost and sustainable humanoid robots for education and addresses some of the broader challenges in developing new, quality and accessible learning materials around them.

 

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  • Organization
    Edinburgh Napier University
  • Profession
    Sustainable and low-cost humanoid robots with AI for research & education