SIMON

Simon is an 38 DOF upper-torso robot with a socially expressive head. We designed Simon specifically with the notion of side-by-side human robot interaction in mind. We worked with Meka Robotics, and Carla Diana to bring Simon to life. Read on for more details on the robot hardware and design. Read recent news about Simon on Simon's blog.

JUNIOR

Before Simon there was Junior, a simple upper-torso robot that we used for research while designing and building Simon. Junior is built from a Bioloid robot kit and a webcam, and interacts with people and objects on a table top workspace.

ROBOT PLAYMATES

Jimmy and Jenny are decendents of Junior, that additionally include wheels on the base to allow for some navigation around the table top workspace. We have been using these robots to study computational models of peer learning (like playmates), implementing biologically inspired mechanisms like stimulus enhancement, emulation, mimicking and imitation.