Authors:
Christopher Xenophontos
;
Teressa Clark
;
Michael Seals
;
Cole Lampman
;
Iliyas Tursynbek
and
Mounia Ziat
Affiliation:
Bentley University, 175 Forest St, Waltham, MA, 02452, U.S.A.
Keyword(s):
Social Robots, Human-Plant Interaction, Multimodal Design, Arduino.
Abstract:
Interacting with plants has been shown to increase both physical and mental health outcomes and seemed obvious for many during such troubling times. Inevitably, plants died as a result of the owner’s lack of awareness of their needs. Gaia, a social robot-planter, was created to communicate a plant’s needs to its owner in an easy and enjoyable way. The final prototype, a multimodal interface, was designed to join natural language messaging with an emotive digital face and “voice.” Creating a social robot that anthropomorphizes the user’s plant to effectively communicate the plants’ needs, build empathy, and create a stronger emotional bond between the plant and owner, leading to better outcomes for both.