Assignment #3 by Simon Fossheim

The Robot babysitter

The Robot babysitter by Tmsuk is a robot built to take care of the children in a Japanese mall while the adults are inside doing there shopping. This robot can communicate with the children, remembers the name and age of the children and can also entertain them with their projector lens, which can show movies or video captured with the camera. Other robot developers are also looking into the idea of robot babysitters, such as the PaPeRo by NEC.

This type of robot can replace people working as babysitters in malls, training centers and other places where parents need to stall their kids for a while, and even at home when they need a babysitter. A robot like this has the advantages over human workers that it doesn’t get tired or bored, and is always ready to play with the children for as long as they want. They are also consistent, so parents doesn’t have to worry about if the babysitter is just sitting on the phone all day and not watching the kids. Looking at the robot compered to humans, it still has a couple of very important limitations, such as feeding the child or aiding it if it gets hurt.

Resources: 

http://www.tmsuk.co.jp/english/pdf/t2_5.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCr8Wn2ZLo

By: Simon Fossheim