The City of Tampere has been piloting talking robots in practising maths as well as English and German in preschools and in the first and second grades. The city has acquired four robots: three little maths robots resembling owls and a small human-like humanoid robot, called Elias, for practising languages.
The robots are suited for practising the skills of young children. The children do not have to know how to read or write as the robots can say the exercises out loud and they recognise the pupils’ answers. In addition to this, the exercises are visible on the screens installed in the maths robots.
Robots are acquired to support normal teaching and to motivate young school children to practise. The exercise robots do not get tired of repetition and they can adapt the exercises to the child’s skills. Tampere University of Technology is conducting a longitude study to estimate whether children’s motivation to practice lasts.
The math robots have been designed and manufactured by AI Robots Oy, a company based in Lohja. Utelias Oy was in charge of programming the language exercises to the humanoid robot Elias manufactured in France.
The robot pilot is part of the Smart Tampere digitalization programme.
See the Reuters story about Elias the language teaching robot here.
Photo: Sanne Kannisto.
