We’ve talked about the NAO Robot a lot on this blog lately. Its applications in programming, special education, and teaching students crucial STEM topics that help prepare students for future careers makes this product by Aldebaran one of our favorites. However, NAO is not the only robot produced by French-Japanese company, and today we’d like to introduce you to another, more recent product.

This is Pepper.

Pepper is what Aldebaran calls an ’emotional’ robot. While similar in some ways to NAO, Pepper has a greater ability to recognize and respond to human emotions based on facial expressions. As the video below states, it was designed to be a companion to humans, and thus the focus is on making a robot that can interact with humans as realistically as possible.

We’ve already seen the effects of this kind of interaction on kids, especially in special education. NAO is currently being used heavily as a tool to help students on the autism spectrum learn to recognize, interpret, and respond to emotional cues. Because it is a simplified version of a person, with a simplified, ‘cute’ face, students with autism can connect to it more easily and use it to develop their social skills for when they interact with flesh-and-blood humans. Because it’s designed to be a companion, Pepper could expand these possibilities with even more nuance and grace

Pepper also can be programmed on the same Choregraphe software that students are already using on the NAO robot. With many similar sensors and additional joints in its waist, students can create their own behaviors for Pepper, practicing their programming skills in an entirely new context. In addition, students can develop a greater understanding of the possible applications of robots outside of what is normally expected. Even before it has arrived in America, it has sparked discussions of human/robot relations, the Turing Test, and even comparisons between this real-world robot and many classic sci-fi favorites.

As of this posting, Pepper is only sold in Japan, although Aldebaran predicts they will be able to open up sales to the United States by summer of this year. One major reason for this is that programmers are redesigning its responses to help it relate to American users more, giving it what some observers call a ‘wisecracker’ or a ‘snarky’ personality.

However, once the release is made, we at Teq are predicting that Pepper will have its own unique place in the educational market. From deepening the appeal of robots in special education to exposing students to the possibilities of technology and programming, there’s no shortage of reasons why we can’t wait to get our hands on one!