What’s of interest? SkoBots Language Learning | The STEAM Connection
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The first Indigenous robot… designed entirely by Indigenous leaders.
A personal, wearable, and interactive Indigenous language revitalization robot that responds to being spoken to in the voices of Indigenous children in the endangered Indigenous language Anishinaabemowin which utilizes ethical, sustainable, and internally developed AI. The students build the robots themselves. The robots reimagine a future with Anishinaabe toys and were made to supplement community language learning (never replace it) for free.
Language is vital to preserving Indigenous cultures and identities—but resources are dwindling and hard to access. Our founders own language, Anishinaabemowin, is an endangered language. Hundreds of Indigenous languages are extinct in the United States, and estimates suggest that only 20 Indigenous languages will remain by 2050.
SkoBots is an interactive and wearable educational robot that sits on your shoulder to teach youth their traditional languages. The 3D printed robot incorporates traditional and personal elements into the unique design and responds to being approached with speech and a flashing light.
The robot costs $250 USD to make. We have partnered with Tribal schools and Indigenous educational institutions to connect students with free robots, alongside mentorship and STEM programs. The robot was created to be a community learning tool, something to foster community ties and learning together. The robot has two different models, one that is simplistic and costs $100 to make - an unintelligent motion sensing model that responds to movement and an AI model that responds to vocal commands with language instruction. The SkoBot uses language recordings from children, Elders, and language experts.
First released at the American Indian Science and Engineering Society 2021 Powwow garnered surprising and exciting results: children responded to the robot. Babies would look up at the face of the robot and children asked to dance to the music it was playing. This created an opportunity to continue to build a fun resource that the kids can make their own and use to supplement Tribal educational programs.
h/t dylan: "Normally "here's an AI robot that talks to kids t…" - Distributed AI Research Community
Where is it?: https://www.steamconnection.org/skobots
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