Robin the Robot serves up smiles at nursing homes, children’s hospitals

At UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, a robot named Robin is making rounds to put smiles on the faces of young patients. A cone-shaped device on wheels, she’s been programmed to remember names.

Robin is powered by artificial intelligence and speaks with the voice of a 7-year-old girl, complete with emotive facial expressions on the screen. It’s a little bit of fun to help relieve the stress of the hospital experience. However, clinicians say she also helps with staffing shortages that have made it more difficult for nurses to build personal connections with patients. 

UMass Memorial Children’s isn’t the only facility with a “Robin.” The system has been deployed in nursing homes and care centers nationwide—currently around 30 of them. 

She also doesn’t operate unsupervised. While Robin is 30% autonomous, she has operators who help to guide and monitor her activities remotely. This also provides a chance to gather data and tweak her programming to make her an even better friend. 

In speaking to the Associated Press, Karen Khachikyan, CEO of Expper Technologies, the developer of the robot, said the end goal is to make the 4-foot-tall android seem like a real-life WALL-E—the beloved character from Pixar’s 2008 animated film—that contains a true sense of emotional intelligence.

Among the robot’s skills are playing music on command, challenging patients to a game of tic-tac-toe and guiding anxious patients through breathing exercises to calm their nerves.

For more, read the full feature from the Associated Press at the link below.