Page 164 - The Secret Museum

Jason Junior was made with the help of lots of MIT graduates. The same goes for

a lot of other things inside the museum archive. I went to check out MIT’s Media Lab,
where lots of zany people are working on exciting, cutting-edge ideas. I peered into a
room containing a huge 3D printer, which is used to print out objects, and upstairs I
saw two robots, called Leonardo and Nexi.

Leonardo was made by MIT in collaboration with Stan Winston Studios, which
made movies such as The Terminator, Aliens, Predator, Edward Scissorhands and
Jurassic Park. Leonardo has huge brown eyes and big rabbit-like ears. He’s super-
expressive. When the MIT designers introduced him to a puppet of the Cookie

Monster, they told him the monster was bad, and Leonardo put up his hands in
defence. He has retired now, and will probably end up in the museum in the future.

Even more personable is Nexi, a white robot with huge blue eyes. She raises her
eyebrows in surprise, slants them in anger and can hear through her ears (they’re
microphones). She looks like a robot you could really chat to and people who see her
for the first time react to her as if she were human. As with the far less human JJ, the
Navy funded Nexi’s development, via a research award. She is still being worked on
in the Media Lab but, some day, technology will supersede her, and she may end up

in the museum collection with Jason Junior.

I listened to a TED (Technology, Education, Design) lecture by Cynthia Breazeal
who is director of the Personal Robots Lab at MIT. She talked about new kinds of
applications for robots. She thinks they can be used for communication. ‘Imagine this
…’ she said. ‘What about a robot accessory for your cell phone? You call your
friend, she puts her hand into a robot and bam! You’re a mebot. You can make eye
contact, you can talk to your friend, you can gesture … maybe the next best thing to
really being there.’ She continued by pointing out that families who are living far

apart often talk on Skype. In her experience that way of interacting doesn’t work well
for children, because they want to play rather than talk. She said she could imagine a
day when her mum could become a ‘grandmabot’ and play with her grandson, even
though they live thousands of miles away from one another. She and her team at the
MIT have also trialled robotic personal trainers, in the MIT lab and in the Boston
area. Most people who tried the robots rated the quality of the robot’s advice highly

and said they trusted them. Many people dressed, named and talked to their robot.
I loved seeing the robots, but I wasn’t so sure I’d want one in my house. When I

left MIT, I went next door, to Toscanini Ice Cream, which is famous in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. There, I ate the most delicious ice cream. One day, perhaps,
expressive robots with big blue eyes will be able to make ice cream like this. I’d be
so impressed.