Investigating the quality of playing with robot toys to inform robot-toy based interventions

Play is an important part of children’s lives and play often includes toys. Toys can make playing fun and easier. Some new toys like robots are very popular but also expensive for families. Regardless of the cost, are robots helpful for playing? Do they help kids have fun? Learn? Try new things? We don’t yet know how good robots are for playing. This project aims to understand how robots influence play.  It does this by comparing children who play with robots with children who play with robot-like dolls (without function or movement).  The difference between the quality of play among the two groups of children will show whether children like robots because they are cool or are affected by the robot’s function.