Kiwi

Name: Kiwi
Rating: 3.7 (1387 reviews)

A 30 cm cartoonish robot with a green shell and feather like outfit that gives it the appearance of an owl with a smiling yellow face. — Kiwi has helped children with autism to talk, smile, interact, and play. Photo: University of Southern California

Kiwi is a tabletop robot tutor and friend. It has a bird-like appearance, LCD face, and is used in classroom activities and for working with children with autism spectrum disorder.

Creator

University of Southern California

Year

2016

Country

United States 🇺🇸

Categories

Education
Research

Features

Partially Autonomous
Soft

A short film on robots helping kids with autism. Video: USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Did you know?

Kiwi has been in its own movie about how it can play with kids in an elementary school setting.

The robot sits on a table surrounded by children looking at computers that will control it. — Teacher, helper, friend. Photo: University of Southern California

A view inside the robots cute exterior shows a smiling cartoonish face on a display, and a red base with electronics. — Kiwi's robotic skeleton. Photo: University of Southern California

Specs

Overview: Interchangeable skins for varying appearance. The SPRITE (Stewart Platform Robot for Interactive Tabletop Engagement) robot is built around a 6 degrees-of-freedom Stewart platform base, with a bracket that holds a mobile device, on which the robot's face is displayed.
Status: Ongoing
Year: 2016
Website: robotics.usc.edu/interaction/robots
Height: 30 cm
Actuators: Power HD 1235MG servo with Micro Maestro 6-channel USB servo controller
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 6
Compute: Mobile phone, held by a bracket attached to the base.
Cost: $4,500