A tiny robot walked in my office today ...

Ricordo

EMRos is this family of so-called World’s smallest autonomous self-propelled micro robots. Each creature is this tiny robot that can record and play back motions being guided by a flashlight.

Ricordo is 1 cm3 in volume and equipped with a recording and playback function. Rubie on the other end is equipped with capricious wandering function. Both were created by Epson in 1995, but I finally got to play with one today, and it is adorable! I found a web site that shows beautiful pictures of the robots as well as the nice packaging that hosts them!

What if we were 11 feet tall?

Yumiko Tanaka created SpyRod, a camera connected to a long stick with fishing line. The idea is that children can see and record the world from very different view points: a very low viewpoint, as if they were little creatures, a world as if they were giant or simply discover the world from their size-view.

By exploring the potential of new small cheap cameras, and by rethinking how children might use them, they stop being cameras and become third eyes.

Interactive toy for autistic children

LINKX an interactive toy that stimulates the language development of autistic children. Via Idealist

Helma van RijnI designed LINKX, a language toy for autistic toddlers. Throughout the process, experts in autism were involved. She tested the prototype with three autistic children in several play-sessions.

The following is the video of her tests