MEmote is now known as Romibo!!!

MEmote made some new friends and fans at the Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire yesterday!

This is MEmote 2.0, an updated beta build that serves as a test bed with which to explore the design needs of a robust social-therapeutic robot. These pictures reveal a lot about the design principles behind the little robot:

Here you can see MEmote’s Arduino-powered electronic innards. The use of off-the-shelf electronic components helps make MEmote affordable, but at the same time endlessly flexible and programmable in terms of behavior.

You can also see the way MEmote’s skeleton is constructed – its plastic “bones,” when disassembled, fit easily into a small, flat space, ideal for delivering MEmotes all over the country.

And of course, MEmote is even more adorable (and huggable!) with its fuzzy skin on:

MEmote’s large eyes allow it to express emotion, and also help encourage children with social difficulties to learn to make eye contact. Overall, MEmote is an interactive, expressive creature designed to be more approachable for children who find human social interaction overwhelming.

Origami Robotics and its MEmote Robot Project will be appearing at the Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire this Sunday, October 23.

The Mini Maker Faire is an event dedicated to do-it-yourself technology, a meeting of tinkerers, builders, and inventors. According to the website, the fair will feature “crafts, engineering, music, robots, workshop digital fabrication, energy, demonstrations, performances, projects and lots of surprises from 70 regional makers and maker organizations.” Attendees can learn new skills, such as soldering or wool spinning, or see demonstrations of exciting homemade products, and it’s a great way for kids and people new to the “maker” movement to learn what it’s all about.

Origami Robotics is a big fan of the maker movement, and as we move forward with the MEmote project, we hope to engage this community of enthusiastic builders and tinkerers to help us get MEmote out into the world, so that it can help as many children with disabilities and autism spectrum disorders as possible. If you’re interested, come out to the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh this Sunday and meet us!

WHAT: Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire
WHERE: Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh (map)
WHEN: Sunday, October 23, 12pm – 6pm

MEmote Robot Project; a crowd-sourced DIY robot + community forum supporting special needs therapy and universal fun.

Objective: Perpetuate the development and deployment of nacent research in assistive technology through crowd-sourcing (and making it fun!).

Approach: Mainstream assistive technologies by developing tandem value for the general public.

Process: Research, Innovate, Contribute, Distribute, Educate, Collaborate, Iterate, Perpetuate!