RESEARCH VISIT AT GAIPS LAB, INESC-ID / INSTITUTO SUPERIOR TÉCNICO, LISBON, PORTUGAL

In this project, Utrecht University and INESC-ID are collaborating in designing a game played with a social robot to teach children about emotions. The end goal of the game is to help children in developing their emotional compentence skills. The game and effects of different types of robot behaviour will be tested at primary schools.

CENTRUM VOOR JEUGD EN GEZIN (DUTCH CHILD AND FAMILY CENTER)

Het centrum voor jeugd en gezin (CJG Capelle) provides a broad range of child and family care, ranging from eye tests to family coaching. In this project, this Dutch child and family center, together with Utrecht University, studies potential real-world applications for social robots in their practices. Qualitative research methods, such as focus groups with experts and co-design workshops with children, are combined with quantitative methods, such as measuring the effect of a social robot in a waiting room or at mass vaccination days.

LEVVEL (SPECIALIZED CHILD MENTAL HEALTH CARE INSTITUTE)

Levvel provides specialized mental health care for children, for example treating autism spectrum disorder and anxiety. Utrecht University, RobotWise and Levvel are collaborating together to develop hands-on educative social robot tools to be used in the therapies Levvel currently provides. The goal of the project is to design educative social robot tools to stimulate child’s socio-emotional development. This project embodies a bottom-up, participatory design approach, where the proposed robot solutions are being developed together with mental health care professionals from the field, robot software providers, and researchers together.