PeppeRecycle

Improving Children’s Attitude Toward Recycling by Playing with a Social Robot

Bibliographic Data

ID21199550
AuthorsGiovanna Castellano (0000-0002-6489-8628, University of Bari Aldo Moro), Berardina De Carolis (0000-0002-2689-137X, University of Bari Aldo Moro, corresponding author), Francesca D’errico (0000-0002-8957-665X, University of Bari Aldo Moro), Nicola Macchiarulo (0000-0002-3754-9991, University of Bari Aldo Moro), Veronica Rossano (0000-0002-4079-9641, University of Bari Aldo Moro)
Year2021
Volume13
Issue1
Pages97-111
Publication date2021-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Social Robotics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1875-4791 • E-ISSN: 1875-4805
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s12369-021-00754-0
OpenAlexW3129913153
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited61

In this paper, we investigate the use of a social robot as an engaging interface of a serious game intended to make children more aware and well disposed towards waste recycle. The game has been designed as a competition between the robot Pepper and a child. During the game, the robot simultaneously challenges and teaches the child how to recycle waste materials. To endow the robot with the capability to play as a game opponent in a real-world context, it is equipped with an image recognition module based on a Convolutional Neural Network to detect and classify the waste material as a child would do, i.e. by simply looking at it. A formal experiment involving 51 primary school students is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the game in terms of different factors such as the interaction with the robot, the users’ cognitive and affective dimensions towards ecological sustainability, and the propensity to recycle. The obtained results are encouraging and draw promising scenarios for educational robotics in changing children’s attitudes toward recycling. Indeed Pepper turns out to be positively evaluated by children as a trustful and believable companion and this allows children to be concentrated on the “memorization” task during the game. Moreover, the use of real objects as waste items during the game turns out to be a successful approach not only for perceived learning effectiveness but also for the children’s engagement

Educational robotics · Human–computer interaction · Mathematics education · Memorization · Mobile robot · Multimedia · Robot · Robot control · Robotics · Social robot · Child and Animal Learning Development · Computer Science · Engineering · Environmental Education and Sustainability · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Psychology · Artificial Intelligence

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