Beijing: The Chinese kindergarten children got a new teacher in their classroom assistant, giving them puzzles to solve. The teaching assistant got a roundish shape with a short height and a screen in place of a face.
Several kindergartens in China have received the new autonomous robot named Keeko (of height two feet) with a warm welcome who tells the children stories and challenges them with logic problems.
The robot is round and white in a tubby body with armless robot zips running on tiny wheels. It has got inbuilt cameras which double up for the function of navigational sensors as well as a front-facing camera that allow users to record video journals.
In China too, robots are being developed to serve in simple domains like delivering groceries, providing companionship to the elderly people and give legal advice and as per the fresh news, turning into educators, according to Keeko’s creators.
A task was given to the children at the Yiswind Institute of Multicultural Education on the outskirts of Beijing, to help a prince out by finding him a way through the desert by putting together square mats that convey the path taken by the robot. This becomes a part of which is storytelling and a part of it becomes problem-solving.
Whenever they get the answer right, the device reacts to their answer through a delightful face by flashing heart-faced eyes.
“Education today is no longer a one-way street, where the teacher teaches and students just learn,” said Candy Xiong, a teacher trained specially in early childhood education who now works with Keeko Robot Xiamen Technology as a trainer.
“When children see Keeko with its round head and body, it looks adorable and children love it. So when they see Keeko, they almost instantly take to it,” she added.
As of now, there are more than 600 kindergartens across the Chinese country that utilize them in education and the manufacturers hope to take it all along to the Greater China and Southeast Asia.
As part of a plan “Made in China 2025”, the country has invested money and manpower in developing artificial intelligence and in this regard, a Chinese firm last year unveiled the county’s first human-like robot that can talk in simple conversations and display facial expressions.
As per the details were given by the International Federation of Robots, China has got the biggest stock of industrial robots with some 340,000 units in factories in the whole country busy manufacturing.
The market for robots for service include devices ranging from medical equipment’s to automated vacuum cleaners — all of which are estimated to be worth USD 1.32 billion last year.
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