The Times : Robot helps pupils to improve their writing

The handwriting of young children improves significantly when they are required to teach robots that seem to be struggling with the same difficulties, scientists say.

Researchers programmed a small humanoid robot to help under-nines to overcome the most common errors, including where parts of the letter appear out of scale and where the letter appears to be rotated at the wrong angle.

At two schools researchers gave children aged between four and eight regular 15-minute sessions with the robot, which was named Michael to make it seem more friendly and approachable. At the start of the sessions Michael explained its difficulties with writing and complained of its poor grades.

“This step was important to create an environment in which the child would find the robot in need of help,” the authors said. Then the robot wrote a letter on a screen and asked the child to correct it by first moving a slider that changed its shape, then drawing the letter by him or herself using a stylus.

The researchers tried three scenarios, two of which proved effective. In the first, the robot improved continuously, regardless of the child’s teaching performance. In the second, it improved only when the child performed well. In the third, the robot did poorly throughout.

The full online article can be found here.