Date: Friday, July 13
Demo:
In the campus center courtyard. My demonstration had the Pleo in its most natural state, and people could touch it and interact with it as much as they wanted, and there were no real “demonstrations” just hands on play
Person:
Multiple people came up to play including an 8 year old boy and his mom, a chef from the campus center, and a few older people
What they said:
Some of the things that were said included “they’re weirdly life like,” “these are so cool!” “I’m so intrigued by these” “that’s so cool”
Conversations:
I asked the 8 year old what he thought and he thought they were cool. I also asked if he thought that his friends would like to play and learn with him and he said yes. His natural inclination was to touch the robot. He was a little bit hesitant and shy with the robot, but thought the touch sensors were cool. His mom was also very interested in the robots and encouraged her son to play with them.
People were also interested in how we were going to use them in education- one woman thought that we were going to use them to teach about plants and animals, so they were very curious about our plans for them.
People said that they wanted them to be a pet. Like the fact that you didn’t have to feed them
We also asked them what gender they thought they were- everyone said they thought they boys. When we asked if they thought it would be better if the robots could talk, half the people said yes, and half said no and thought it would take away from the dinosaur, robot state.