Design, Fabrication, and Evaluation of the “Maya” Social Robot

Abstract

In the past few years, social robots have attracted researchers' attention from leading countries in this field. These robots can play a potential role in human life, such as entertainment, therapy, and education. This paper covers the design process and fabrication of a robot called “Maya”, whose purpose is to act as an intermediary in children's medical treatment progress. Maya is an intelligent toy embedded with multimedia devices with the capability for self-presentation and other behaviors. Two of the most important factors of this type of social robots are their acceptance into everyday life and the capability to be used with children, in particular during their medical treatment process. In this study, a scenario was designed for the robot, including a poem, story, and music, to evaluate these two aspects. The results indicated that the robot has both the potential to be therapeutic and the ability to be used in the entertainment and education of children.