Shelly, a Tortoise-Like Robot for One-to-Many Interaction with Children

Abstract

We designed "Shelly", a robot interacting with children while restraining childrens robot abusing behaviors. Shelly has a tortoise-like friendly appearance and touch based simple and versatile interface, which encourages children to interact with the robot spontaneously in environments such as amusement park or kindergarten. We have developed two prototypes and proved validity of Shellys social concepts - one-to-many interaction and restraining robot abusing - through field tests. Ultimately, Shellys novel interface and interaction model targeted for multiple-children interaction would effectively attribute to various social goods.