Humanoid robot as a tutor in a team-based training activity

ABSTRACT

Humanoid robotics is an emerging field striving to deploy technological devices capable of resembling and mimicking the human form. Primarily, the capability of human-like robots to interact with people has proved to be contributory in areas such as education and caretaking, but less so in adult training. In this study, we outline the design and experiment of an escape room training activity facilitated by a humanoid robot (HR), NAO. An escape room is a gamified activity where a team of players must complete a series of challenges to "escape from the room" by opening four locks in a limited amount of time. Opening each lock required the team to find hints and solve problems mediated by NAO. During the activity, NAO provided ongoing feedback on the team's performance. Ten experts evaluated the experience and were asked about their overall assessment of the activity and the added value of NAO as a mediator. The results on the feasibility of NAO's serving as motivating tutor in adults' collaborative game-based learning were very encouraging. We believe this study marks the first step toward developing a generic template for learning and training processes supported by a HR.

KEYWORDS:

• Humanoid robot
• NAO
• escape room training
• team-based activity
• training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 NAO – https://www.aldebaran.com/en/more-about. Accessed: 2 April 2020.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gila Kurtz

Prof. Gila Kurtz (Ph.D.) is currently Dean of the Instructional Technologies faculty at Holon Institute of Technology (HIT) in Israel. Other positions of Prof Kurtz were: Head of M.A. Program on ICT & Learning at the college of Academic studies; adjunct Professor at The University of Maryland University College (UMUC), USA; head of interactive television satellite-based unit at the Open University of Israel (OUI) and the director of an e-learning center at Bar-Ilan University. Also, she was the Academic Vice President of a company that provided e-Learning solutions for the corporate industry. She serves as a mentor at MindCET – The center for innovation and technological development in education. She has been a visiting scholar at several academic institutions including University of California Berkeley, School of Education Syracuse University and University Roma, TRE, Italy. Prof. Kurtz has published several books, articles and presented papers at international conferences.

Dan Kohen-Vacs

Dr. Dan Kohen Vacs (Ph.D.), Head of Undergraduate Department, Holon Institute of Technology, Israel. His research interests are focused on the development and deployment of advanced technological architectures used to enhance learning and training Processes.