Let's Play Together: Designing Robots to Engage Children with Special Needs and Their Peers in Robot-Assisted Play

ABSTRACTPlay is a vital part of childhood, however, children with physical special needs face many obstacles in traditional play scenarios. We have developed MyJay, a robotic system that enables such children to play with their peers via a robot proxy in a basketball-like game. This semi-autonomous robot will feature adaptable controllers to allow children of any physical ability to play the proposed game, and it will focus on developing better child-child interaction.