ROBOT ENHANCED MOBILITY II: THE EMERGENCE OF MOBILITY AND SOCIALIZATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN

婴儿是热情的探险家。每个婴儿都会从日常探索世界的经验中发展思考、感知和移动的能力。通过爬行和行走独立活动的能力是婴儿发育变化的主要原因。在他们之前由NSF资助的项目中，该团队开发了一种新型的机器人增强移动设备作为模型系统，以测试与婴儿的移动如何影响他们的认知、语言和运动发展相关的假设。具体地说，他们发现，非常年幼的婴儿在学会爬行或行走之前，就已经有能力学会驾驶四轮移动机器人。更重要的是，这种早期的流动性促进了他们的认知、语言和运动发育。这种早期的流动性是在典型的实验室环境中学习的，没有其他孩子在场。在这个后续项目中，该团队继续使用移动机器人，但现在使用了一种新的机器人，它允许婴儿在与其他儿童的社交环境中学习移动和社交。这项新的技术和培训将允许研究人员测试另一个关键问题：如果在非社交环境中学习的早期流动性可以促进认知，那么在社交环境中出现的早期流动性是否会促进早期社会行为？在这里，婴儿将通过一种新的社交移动四轮机器人创造性地连接起来，为婴儿提供早期行动训练，该机器人允许婴儿在与其他儿童玩耍时进行移动。这款新颖的机器人使用了特殊的操纵杆和独特的跟踪传感器，以“鼓励”婴儿司机与其他孩子一起进行社交游戏。该项目具有基础科学、医学、商业和教育等方面的影响。例如，它将增加我们对婴儿一般探索能力的理解，并促进受发展启发的机器人技术。由此产生的培训和技术将与其他基础和应用实验室公开分享，以便它们能够测试移动性在其开发领域中的作用。由此产生的数据和技术为下一代现实世界中的车辆提供了基础，这些车辆将供天生行动不便的婴儿使用。由于缺乏技术，这些婴儿必须等到3-5岁才能获得电动轮椅。该团队认为，推迟行动的重大行为、神经生理、教育和社会成本是不必要的。人们已经对小型轮式车辆产生了巨大的医疗和商业兴趣，这种车辆可以提供现实世界中的机动性，并促进幼儿的发展。教育影响同样令人兴奋，是机器人学、心理学、早期教育和儿科康复独特合作的结果。对工程和/或儿童发展感兴趣的高中生和大学生在这个项目的有意义的方面作为有价值的成员工作。与NSF之前的工作一样，这个团队让学生、教师和临床医生参与机器人设计，为早期教育工作者提供课程和研讨会，就发展灵感机器人和高科技儿科康复等主题举行网络研讨会。该团队还与研究生/本科生/中学课程保持着积极的关系，尤其对让代表不足的群体参与科学和工程的乐趣和发现感兴趣。这个团队继续推动将实验室放在社区内，反之亦然(公民科学)，这样社区的所有成员都可以参与到使用基础科学回答现实世界的问题所带来的乐趣、兴奋和深深的满足感中。

Infants are intense explorers. Each infant develops the ability to think, sense and move from experiences gathered during daily exploration of the world. The ability to be independently mobile through crawling and then walking is a major cause of developmental change for the infant. In their previous NSF funded project this team developed a novel robot enhanced mobility device as a model system to test hypotheses related to how an infant's mobility impacts their cognition, language and movement development. Specifically, they found that very young infants have the ability to learn to drive a 4 wheeled mobile robot before they can crawl or walk. More importantly, this early mobility advanced their cognitive, language and motor development. This early mobility was learned in a typical lab environment with no other children present. In this follow-up project, this team continues the use of mobile robotics but now with a new robot that allows infants to learn mobility and socialization within a social setting with other children. This new technology and training will allow investigators to test another key question: If early mobility that is learned in a non social setting advance cognition, can early mobility that emerges within a social setting advance early social behaviors? Here, infants will be provided with early mobility training creatively linked by a new socially mobile 4 wheeled robot that allows infant to be mobile while playing with other children. This novel robot uses a special joystick and unique tracking sensors to "encourage" the infant driver to engage in social play with other children. This project has basic science, medical, business and educational impact. For example, it will increase our understanding of the general exploratory capacity of infants, and advance developmentally inspired robotics. The resulting training and technology will be openly shared with other basic and applied labs so that they can test the role of mobility in their areas of development. Resulting data and technology provide a foundation for the next generation of real world vehicles for use by infants born with mobility impairments. Due to the lack of technology, these infants must wait until they are 3-5 years of age before power wheelchairs are available. This team believes the significant behavioral, neurophysiological, educational and societal costs of delaying mobility are unnecessary. There is already significant medical and business interest in small wheeled vehicle that could provide real world mobility and advance a young child's development. The educational impact is equally exciting and results from the unique collaboration of robotics, psychology, early education and pediatric rehabilitation. High school and university students interested in engineering and/or child development work as valued members on meaningful aspects of this project. As with the previous NSF work, this team involves students, teachers and clinicians in robotics design, courses and seminars for early educators, webinars on topics such as developmentally inspired robotics and high tech pediatric rehabilitation. This team also maintains active relationships with graduate/undergraduate/secondary school programs with a particular interest in engaging under-represented groups in the fun and discovery of science and engineering. This team continues their push to place the lab within the community and vice versa ("civic science") such that all members of the community can participate in the fun, excitement and deep satisfaction that comes from using basic science to answer real world questions.