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Storytelling robot
The robot can act, for example, as an assistant to healthcare workers, or as a storyteller among clients and visiting family members. In previous editions of the long-running Robotstories project, positive effects were observed from the use of social robots among children and people with dementia.The project started at a care home location of AxionContinu in Utrecht. The kick-off was attended by researchers, writers, nurses, and of course: pepper-robot Memo. The afternoon primarily served to introduce all the different people involved to one another.
Robot and clients
Also introduced to each other, were the robot Memo and the care home clients, who joined together in a short co-creation session. What did they have to tell Memo about, for example, nice food and how to prepare it? And how would they feel if they would be able to talk with Memo every day? And what would they want to talk about?Partnership
Expanding Narratives is a collaboration between HKU, the healthcare institutions AxionContinu and Vitalis, writers of the Nijmegen-based literary organisation Wintertuin, and reseachers from ArtEZ and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.Writers in residence
To the script writers of these social robots, this interactive platform is a new medium in which they can present their stories, thereby expanding their range and impact towards a socially relevant domain. The next step in this project is partly taken by them, as the writers go into residence at the care home. By ‘jobshadowing’ the care workers in the caring homes, observing them in their daily tasks, they discover what types of stories and dialogues are needed.Two PhD researchers
Two PhD researchers are involved in Expanding Narratives. At HKU, this is Jorrit Thijn, with his PhD Robots with Character. At VU Amsterdam, this is Sander Goetzee.Creative writers should have a much larger involvement in the development of robots, according to Jorrit Thijn. “My view on humanity is that identity stems from your interactions with other people and your environment. That’s the insight I try to incorporate in this model for the robot.’ Read the full interview with Jorrit Thijn (in Dutch).
