Crocobot

Crocobot
Short Description:	Game for children with physical impairments
Coordinator:	AndreaBonarini (andrea.bonarini@polimi.it)
Tutor:	AndreaBonarini (andrea.bonarini@polimi.it)
Collaborator:
Students:	GiuliaAlessandrelli (giulia.alessandrelli@mail.polimi.it), FedericaBussa (federica.bussa@mail.polimi.it)
Research Area:	Robotics
Research Topic:	Robot development
Start:	2016/10/24
End:	2017/06/16
Status:	Closed
Level:	Bs
Type:	Course

Abstract

More than a billion people, about 15% of the world's population, are now living with some form of disability, but robotic technologies are spreading quickly through the world to overcame the difficulties faced by people with disabilities. The use of robotic technologies removes environmental and social barriers and increases the involvement of people with different types of disabilities in a daily context.

The project aims the development of an entertaining robotic game for motor impaired children. As a matter of fact, the lack of suitable toys for this form of disability and the importance of play in the children's developing, well-known by everyone, show the need of fostering interest toward this scientific field. It consisted of robot's design, software implementation and hardware planning. The control of the robotic technology is based on the open source hardware and software Arduino and the behaviour of the robot is allowed by several actuators and sensors properly connected.

The outcome of the project is a qualitative analysis of the performance of the robot. The co-presence of the remote control and the autonomous movement is a technical aspect that contributes to make the robot an interactive tool. Indeed, the high interaction between child and robot was the most important aspect that we considered during the development of the game. For this reason, the robot looks like a crocodile's puppy, it shows emotions through the movement of the tail and some sounds and it can perceive the touch of the child.