--------------------------------------------
i n v e s t i g a t o r s :

Keith Evan Green
Design & MechE, Cornell

Yarden Kader
Psychology, Cornell and Beit Berl College (Israel)

Raquel Cañete Yaque
PhD student lead, Industrial Design Eng., U. of Seville & Visting Fulbright Scholar, Cornell

Cornell Student Team:
Joshua Blair, Eli Vicarte, Hsin-Ming Chao, Jenny Yu, Jill Thai, Lucia Pannunzio, Fannie Massarsky, Nayeon Kwon.

--------------------------------------------
p a r t n e r s :

Hillside Residential Center (Rochester, New York)

Residential Child Care Project
at Cornell University (link)

current prototype

e-MoBo
Interactive devices supporting positive relational processes
between children and adults (especially) in residential care settings


v i d e o s :

for RO-MAN 2024; (paper) “KAZUO TANIE” BEST PAPER AWARD.

for IDC 2023; (paper).

o v e r v i e w :

Children who live in out-of-home, residential care facilities have typically experienced adversity and trauma and consequentially exhibit psychological distress (e.g., despair, detachment). Residential care facilities are understaffed while needing to establish a healthy liaison between staff and children. This lamentable state of affairs has become more pressing following the Covid-19 pandemic. With expertise in design, robotics, interaction design, cognitive science,developmental psychology, and early childhood education, our research team has designed three early robotic prototypes that we call “e,” “Mo," and “Bo,” in our longer design endeavor to develop “e-MoBo,” an interactive, non-humanoid robot for young children living in residential care facilities to playfully express themselves.

The aim of this child-centered project is to provide the opportunity for children who have experienced hostile environments and inappropriate care to become aware of, regulate, and express their inner socio-emotional world via tactile and visual experimentation with eMoBo so that they might more easily communicate their feelings and needs with non-biological caregivers, striving for a significant, long-standing improvement in the wellbeing of these children. In this paper, we present our designs and envision their use in two use cases. We are developing e-MoBo prototypes with our research partners, the Hillside Residential Center (Rochester, New York) and local children and schools.

p u b l i c a t i o n s :

Raquel Cañete,* Yarden Kedar, & Keith E. Green. e-MoBo, a Low-Cost, “Robo-Mediator” Helping Therapists Teach Children How to Express Emotions: Insights from Field Testing. 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Pasadena, CA, 2024. “KAZUO TANIE” BEST PAPER AWARD

Joshua Blair, Eli Vicarte, Hsin-Ming Chao, Lucia Pannunzio, Fannie Massarsky, Alyssa Yoon, Yarden Kedar, & Keith Evan Green. 2023. EMoBo: Three Early Interactive Prototypes Supporting positive Relational Processes between Children and Adults in Residential Care Settings. IACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC '23), pp. 697-700.

3 early prototypes: "e" "Mo" and "Bo"

The "e" prototype for weekly therapy.