Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ANIMATAS (Advancing intuitive human-machine interaction with human-like social capabilities for education in schools)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-01-01 bis 2022-06-30
What if children taught robots? This is the challenge of the European project ANIMATAS launched in January 2018. There are approximately 40 collaborators worldwide, and the project is looking to understand how robots with skills that can be used in school to assist educational teams.
ANIMATAS is a leading European Training Network devoted to the development of a new generation of creative and critical research leaders and innovators who have a skill-set tailored for the creation of social capabilities necessary for realizing step changes in the development of intuitive human-machine interaction in educational settings. Two mains actions:
(1) a transnational network of universities and industrial partners that will supervise and deliver specialized training for early stage researchers (ESRs), and
(2) the cross-fertilization of state-of-the-art methods from the domains of social robotics, embodied virtual characters, social and educational sciences in order to facilitate the development of skills necessary to design machines capable of engaging in intuitive sustained encounters with teachers and children.
ANIMATAS ensures an integrative approach to the development of new capabilities with a view to their impact on whole system performance in terms of the complete HMI loop by building industry–guided showcases that integrate the social capabilities developed by the ESRs. The participation of industrial partners supports the translation of new academic results to the marketplace and a better transfer of knowledge between different sectors. The exposure of the non- academic sector to the ESRs has a great market potential that our industrial partners aim to capitalize upon in terms of recruiting young talents after the end of the project and adopting ANIMATAS’ advances in intuitive HMI for future product lines.
This greatly benefits the ESRs, which will be provided with new career perspectives in the social robotics and ed-tech industries. The ETN strengthen Europe’s capacity in research and innovation by nurturing a new generation of highly skilled ESRs with an entrepreneurial mind-set and an understanding of intuitive HMI and potential products in these emerging markets.
ANIMATAS is a leading European Training Network devoted to the development of a new generation of creative and critical research leaders and innovators who have a skill-set tailored for the creation of social capabilities necessary for realizing step changes in the development of intuitive human-machine interaction in educational settings. Two mains actions:
(1) a transnational network of universities and industrial partners that will supervise and deliver specialized training for early stage researchers (ESRs), and
(2) the cross-fertilization of state-of-the-art methods from the domains of social robotics, embodied virtual characters, social and educational sciences in order to facilitate the development of skills necessary to design machines capable of engaging in intuitive sustained encounters with teachers and children.
ANIMATAS ensures an integrative approach to the development of new capabilities with a view to their impact on whole system performance in terms of the complete HMI loop by building industry–guided showcases that integrate the social capabilities developed by the ESRs. The participation of industrial partners supports the translation of new academic results to the marketplace and a better transfer of knowledge between different sectors. The exposure of the non- academic sector to the ESRs has a great market potential that our industrial partners aim to capitalize upon in terms of recruiting young talents after the end of the project and adopting ANIMATAS’ advances in intuitive HMI for future product lines.
This greatly benefits the ESRs, which will be provided with new career perspectives in the social robotics and ed-tech industries. The ETN strengthen Europe’s capacity in research and innovation by nurturing a new generation of highly skilled ESRs with an entrepreneurial mind-set and an understanding of intuitive HMI and potential products in these emerging markets.
ANIMATAS project started on January 2018. The beneficiaries recruited the 15 ESRs, as well as an Independent Ethical Advisor, and the boards members were appointed.
ANIMATAS successfully organized the Transferable Technical Skills Workshops and Technical Workshops as initially planned in the Grant Agreement. Several partners and members of Scientific, Ethical and School Boards took part of the training events by giving talks, advices or organizing practical sessions. ANIMATAS also organized several events related to innovation and a workshop
The ANIMATAS Personal Career Development Plans are an integral part of the career development planning. A template has been designed and introduced to all ESRs and a procedure has been defined to regularly update it (each 6 months). Our female ESRs are very active for promoting and animating actions for Gender Equality by leading and participating to Women in AI activities.
The Coordinator produced an Ethics and Data Management questionnaire to collect information from beneficiaries. The Independent Ethical Advisor and the Data Protection Officer have reviewed this document. The ESRs were regularly invited to fill the questionnaire. The Independent Ethical Advisor produced three reports. Ethics courses were introduced in all training events.
ANIMATAS maintained a very active research agenda with a focus on Embodiment (WP2), Social Learning (WP3) and Personalised Adaptation (WP4). ANIMATAS made several key contributions at the core of human-machine/robot/agent interaction, and others target agents/robots for learning. The goal was to achieve high academic standards demonstrated by the publication and dissemination of results in top-venues.
ANIMATAS successfully organized the Transferable Technical Skills Workshops and Technical Workshops as initially planned in the Grant Agreement. Several partners and members of Scientific, Ethical and School Boards took part of the training events by giving talks, advices or organizing practical sessions. ANIMATAS also organized several events related to innovation and a workshop
The ANIMATAS Personal Career Development Plans are an integral part of the career development planning. A template has been designed and introduced to all ESRs and a procedure has been defined to regularly update it (each 6 months). Our female ESRs are very active for promoting and animating actions for Gender Equality by leading and participating to Women in AI activities.
The Coordinator produced an Ethics and Data Management questionnaire to collect information from beneficiaries. The Independent Ethical Advisor and the Data Protection Officer have reviewed this document. The ESRs were regularly invited to fill the questionnaire. The Independent Ethical Advisor produced three reports. Ethics courses were introduced in all training events.
ANIMATAS maintained a very active research agenda with a focus on Embodiment (WP2), Social Learning (WP3) and Personalised Adaptation (WP4). ANIMATAS made several key contributions at the core of human-machine/robot/agent interaction, and others target agents/robots for learning. The goal was to achieve high academic standards demonstrated by the publication and dissemination of results in top-venues.
ANIMATAS targets scientific, technical and innovations around three main components :
1) Exploration of fundamental questions relating to the interconnections between robots and virtual characters’ appearance, behaviours and perception by people (WP2).
We designed studies to investigate the relationships between behavioural and appearance qualities of agents and measure their impact on users’ perceptions. We developped computational models for the generation of multimodal behaviours and emotional expressions for social agents in interaction settings.
2) Development of new social learning mechanisms that can deal with different types of human intervention and allow robots and virtual characters to learn in an unconstrained manner (WP3)
We focused on the development of mechanisms for robot/character social learning, i.e. learning in a social context via the interaction with humans. This means that humans act as teachers and robots as learners. Different machine learning techniques are used for robot learning. While robots/characters learn skills for interacting with humans, they also act as educational agents (e.g. tutors, peers) supporting human learning.
3) Development of new approaches for robots and virtual characters’ personalised adaptation to human users in unstructured and dynamically evolving social interactions (WP4)
We developed new computational approaches for adaptive human-agent interactions that are closely coupled with social cognition abilities to achieve mutual co-adaptation in learning scenarios
During the interaction, the agent, be it virtual or physical, could act as a tutor, a peer, a mentor, etc. The interaction may be dyadic or multi-party. Humans (e.g. children) will interact with agents in an education setting, where establishing and maintaining trust for these agents is crucial to ensure collaborative interaction. The different research questions are addressed theoretically and experimentally; computational models are drawn and implemented from these studies and tested in the lab as well as in ecological situations (i.e. schools) whenever possible.
ANIMATAS defined and implemented a structured training programme that leverages cross-disciplinary, cross-national and cross-sectorial strengths.
ANIMATAS made several key contributions at the core of human-machine/robot/agent interaction, and others target agents/robots for learning. The goal was to achieve high academic standards demonstrated by the publication and dissemination of results in top-venues.
1) Exploration of fundamental questions relating to the interconnections between robots and virtual characters’ appearance, behaviours and perception by people (WP2).
We designed studies to investigate the relationships between behavioural and appearance qualities of agents and measure their impact on users’ perceptions. We developped computational models for the generation of multimodal behaviours and emotional expressions for social agents in interaction settings.
2) Development of new social learning mechanisms that can deal with different types of human intervention and allow robots and virtual characters to learn in an unconstrained manner (WP3)
We focused on the development of mechanisms for robot/character social learning, i.e. learning in a social context via the interaction with humans. This means that humans act as teachers and robots as learners. Different machine learning techniques are used for robot learning. While robots/characters learn skills for interacting with humans, they also act as educational agents (e.g. tutors, peers) supporting human learning.
3) Development of new approaches for robots and virtual characters’ personalised adaptation to human users in unstructured and dynamically evolving social interactions (WP4)
We developed new computational approaches for adaptive human-agent interactions that are closely coupled with social cognition abilities to achieve mutual co-adaptation in learning scenarios
During the interaction, the agent, be it virtual or physical, could act as a tutor, a peer, a mentor, etc. The interaction may be dyadic or multi-party. Humans (e.g. children) will interact with agents in an education setting, where establishing and maintaining trust for these agents is crucial to ensure collaborative interaction. The different research questions are addressed theoretically and experimentally; computational models are drawn and implemented from these studies and tested in the lab as well as in ecological situations (i.e. schools) whenever possible.
ANIMATAS defined and implemented a structured training programme that leverages cross-disciplinary, cross-national and cross-sectorial strengths.
ANIMATAS made several key contributions at the core of human-machine/robot/agent interaction, and others target agents/robots for learning. The goal was to achieve high academic standards demonstrated by the publication and dissemination of results in top-venues.