2013 Press Releases
Robots mean toys for all
It was a case of Rudolph the Red Nosed Robot recently as a festive crew waltzed around campus, proving toys really are for every child, no matter what challenges they may face.
Filmed by UCC cameraman Stephen Bean, their ability to dance in time to the tune of Jingle Bells was inspired by the words of No Limbs No Limits star Joanne O’Riordan from Co. Cork, who had previously addressed the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union’s Conference, ‘Girls in Technology’ in 2012. She spoke at the time of how technology has helped improve her quality of life over Total Amelia Syndrome, and she challenged those present to develop more capable robots.
A team led by Dr Emanuel Popovici and Dr Michele Magno of UCC’s Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering has answered that challenge, and are some ways down the road towards improving the access and experience of interacting with toys for children with a range of disabilities, at a low cost.
The multidisciplinary project, ‘Intelligent Interfaces for Interacting with Toys’ (i3-Toys), is composed of students from Electronics, Applied Psychology, Education, Computer Science and Medicine at UCC. Due to the wide variety of disabilities, special customised interfaces are needed for each person based on their individual situation. The complexity of building such systems can vary according to the level of disability, and can become very expensive as a result. These factors can limit drastically the access to toys.
Dr Emanuel Popovici (Embedded Systems Group director) comments: “Our aim is to bring at least a smile to kids of all ages, no matter what challenges they may face. To tackle the problem of cost, we are developing platforms that harness the latest advances in wireless sensor network and digital signal processing technology to develop low-cost, low-power intelligent interfaces between toys and children.”
Low cost robots were bought for as little as ten euro, and were then enhanced with ‘intelligence’ to pick up and respond to sound in this case, but the future applications are immense. The team is working on developing toys that will respond to a range of biosignals, like the movement of eyes or the slight tap of fingers, in collaboration with colleagues from France, Switzerland and Romania.
The team of students from UCC working on the project include Fiona Edwards-Murphy, Alex Jaeger, Tadhg Lambe (all Electrical and Electronic Engineering), Andreea Zagoneanu (Occupational Therapy) and Merisa Bradley (Early Years and Childhood Studies).
The robots have previously given Michael Flatley a run for his money, taking on the complex task of keeping up with Riverdance: