Medi-bot is an emotional support robot for healthcare professionals. It prompts the user with questions and provides words of encouragement to decompress after a stressful situation or day at work. The robot was built using an Arduino microcontroller.
Lead Designer & Programmer
Zoom, Modeling Shop, Arduino Micro-Controller, Photoshop
To reduce stress and improve the mental well-being of healthcare professionals who work in environments of stressful or traumatic medical events.
Synchronous and asynchronous semi-structured interviews were conducted with medical personnel including a registered nurse, student nurse, physician assistant, and flight paramedic.
Insights:
Based on our primary and secondary findings, the robot should:
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The sensor on bottom senses a user's approach and becomes alert, a gentle chime plays, the head lights up and turns slightly to indicate that it is aware of the user's presence. A message displays on its screen asking how the user is doing. The user verbally relays some of their stress or feelings to the robot, getting it off his chest, feeling some sense of release. Medi-bot then displays another message, this time some words of encouragement to tell the nurse they’re doing a good job.
The initial users from the primary research were shown the robot and asked a series of questions for feedback.
Although we would have liked to implement more features into our robot, we're happy with what we were able to accomplish!
Though it was not possible to test in a medical environment, user response to our prototype was entirely positive, with many describing it as cute, non-threatening, and approachable. These attributes were among those collected in our research as positive attributes for a socially assistive robot to possess.
If we were iterating upon our design, we might implement a larger screen, the ability to speak and listen, and a microwave sensor that could remain hidden inside the robot.
This was the first project I worked on that I could not imagine myself as a potential user. Although for other projects I still researched the users extensively, this was the first time I had to completely empathize with users and that's what I loved about this project.
The answers we received from interviews were unexpected and forced us to set aside any preconceived notions we had, which made designing more difficult but far more exciting.
