The RUBI/QRIO Project: Origins, Principles, and First Steps

Computers are already powerful enough to sustain useful robots that interact and assist humans in every-day life. However progress requires a scientific shakedown in goals and methods not unlike the cognitive revolution that occurred 40 years ago. The document presents the origin and early steps of the RUBI/QRIO project, in which two humanoid robots, RUBI and QRIO, are being brought to an early childhood education center on a daily bases for a period of time of at least one year. The goal of the RUBI/QRIO project is to accelerate progress on everyday life interactive robots by addressing the problem at multiple levels, including the development of new scientific methods, formal approaches, and scientific agenda. The current focus of the project is on educational environments, exploring the ways in which this technology could be used to assist teachers and enrich the educational experiences of children. We describe the origins, philosophy and first steps of the project, which included immersion of the researchers in the Early Childhood Education Center at UCSD, development of a social robot prototype named RUBI, and daily field studies with RUBI and QRIO, a prototype humanoid developed by Sony