Caring robots

One course in two cities! The first week of this course is in Almere, the second week in Barcelona.

We are currently entering the new era of applied robotics: many applications that were restricted to the world of tests and prototypes appear in environments where they are actually applied. There is robot assisted therapy for special groups like autistic children and older adults with dementia; robots are already providing companionship and services, rehabilitation robotics are making people with severe paralysis or missing limbs walk, talk and grab things.

This course gives an overview of the possibilities that emerge in this field and it shows how researchers from very different disciplines collaborate on robots that have capacities that may exceed our expectations. It is in fact this collaboration that is the key to successful developments and that is why we target at students with varying backgrounds.

The focus of the first week will be on acquiring insight in recent developments. Workshops will be given (partly using remote lecturing facilities) by specialists from different universities and even different parts of the world. The focus of the second week will be on developing robots and doing user studies in mixed teams. Each team will present its findings in a short paper.

Course leader

Dr. Marcel Heerink

Target group

Bachelor and Master students with a strong interest in this field, either from a social or psychological perspective or from a technological viewpoint.

Course aim

The course aim is to learn about the newest developments of robots in health and childcare. The course unites students from social and technical studies. They will partly follow different tracks. The focus of the first week is on discovering the state of the art in this field. The focus of the second week is on actually developing and testing robots in teams of students with different (technical/non-technical)backgrounds. We will be using Lego Mindstorms and Arduino and will apply the developed robots to some available specific user groups (e.g. children, older adults), evaluating both technical issues and user responses.