Parents seeking help in encouraging toddlers to be physically active may soon need to look no further than an inexpensive robotic buddy for their kids, a new study by Oregon State University (OSU) suggests.
The findings are important because movement plays a key role in the overall health of children, both in youth and later on in adulthood, the authors note.
Researchers observed individual sessions for eight kids ages 2-3 once a week for two months in a playroom that included various toys as well as a toddler-sized GoBot: a custom, wheeled, foam-padded robot designed through a collaboration between the OSU colleges of Engineering and Health.
WEEKLY SESSIONS
Weekly sessions with each of the five boys and three girls were broken into three segments.
During one of them, the GoBot was in the room but not active, though the child was free to push and pull the robot around if he or she wanted to.
In another, the GoBot’s movements – basically keep-away maneuvers – were directed by an operator using a PlayStation DualShock4 controller, and in the third segment type, the motion was autonomous. In either scenario, the GoBot rewarded the child for getting close to it by emitting sounds, lights or bubbles.