EMYS

A beige robotic head consisting of three spherical segments and expressive eyes on a base with a display.
EMYS is extremely expressive. Photo: EMYS Inc.

EMYS is a friendly robot head designed to teach kids foreign languages in a fun, interactive way. It can move, speak, and uses its expressive face to display different emotions and connect with users.

Creator

EMYS Inc.

Year
2018
Country
United States 🇺🇸
Categories
Features
Learning with EMYS. Video: EMYS Inc.

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Appearance

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Did you know?

One of the first prototypes fell of a table during testing with a group of kids, breaking part of the head. Fortunately, the kids and their teacher were able to fix it using a Band-Aid.

The robotic head sits on a table while two children interact with it by placing cards against its base.
"Smart Tags" help the robot and users identify a word in different languages. Photo: EMYS Inc.

History

Emys was part of the FLASH social robot project led by Jan Kędzierski at the Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland. FLASH consisted of a wheeled Segway-style body equipped with a single arm, plus an expressive head. The unique head design, called Emys (for "emotive head system"), was part of the LIREC Project, an European research program with the goal of "exploring how to design digital and interactive companions who can develop and read emotions and act cross-platform." In 2018, Kędzierski founded a company to commercialize Emys as an educational robot. Emys is used in homes and classrooms by children age 3-7 who interact with the robot through a series of interactive tasks, games, crafts, activities, songs, and stories.

The robot sits on a table in front of a group of children seated on a rug.
Just call me "Teacher EMYS." Photo: EMYS Inc.

Specs

Overview

Designed for kids ages 3-9. Speech synthesis and recognition. LCD display on its base.

Status

Ongoing

Year

2018

Website
Width
23 cm
Height
38 cm
Length
23 cm
Weight
4 kg
Sensors

Touch sensors, RGB camera, microphone, RFID reader

Actuators

Four DC motors with encoder feedback

Degrees of Freedom (DoF)
4 (Neck: 2 DoF; Head discs: 2 DoF)
Materials

ABS plastic

Compute

ARM Cortex A53, ARM Cortex M4. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Software

Linux, Free RTOS

Power

Battery, 2 hours of operation; external AC power adapter

Cost
$800 (consumer edition) $1500 (school edition)