Dr. Hideki Kozima is a Japanese doctor who has developed the adorable ‘Keepon’ robot that is used to examine children’s communication skills, specifically those with autism. Based on previous research, they found that kids were frightened by mechanisms that resembled children, so they decided to design a robot that would be easy to adapt to.
The ‘Keepon’ is a cute and tiny yellow robot that looks like a toy, with two round black eyes and a nose the size of a button. The toy bounces up and down, and makes a cute noise that sounds like "pon". The simplicity of the robot and its friendly demeanor has made it easy for children to interact and play with it. This in turn has greatly aided researchers in their studies.
A YouTube video was posted of the robot dancing to Spoon’s "I Turn My Camera On" and it quickly went viral, gaining over 3 million hits. People wanted to own one, so a toy version was then released called ‘MyKeepon’ and the ‘KeeponPro’ was also released for research labs. All the proceeds from the ‘MyKeepon’ go towards subsidizing units for researchers.
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