Pleo

Focus points:

  • Project goal

    Garage2020 asked us to research the possibilities of one of their robot’s, Pleo. Our study explores the potential impact of a social robot like Pleo on social cohesion in the youth care home. Pleo is an animatronic pet dinosaur toy manufactured by Innova Labs. It is considered a social robot because it autonomously interacts and communicates with humans by following social behaviours and rules attached to its role.

  • Client

    This research was carried out in collaboration with Garage2020, an institution working in youth aid with children who can no longer live at home with their biological parents.

  • Process

    We aimed to observe and analyse Pleo’s influence on the social relationships of young children living in a youth care home. The study consisted of one baseline period, two treatment periods and four measurements, with each period lasting one week. During the measurements, the participants were asked to answer questions about their social relationships, according to a 10-point scale.

  • My role

    For this project, I contributed to the study setup, interviews for the study, and data analysis.

  • Result

    This study has built an interesting starting point for further research to improve the youth care system using interactive robots or to improve the design of interactive robots to better fit the youth care system.