National Science Foundation Awards $440,885 Grant for Robots That Read to Kids

The National Science Foundation awarded a $440,885 grant to researchers at MIT to develop social robots specifically to be reading companions for children. The investigation is led by Cynthia Breazeal, who's been in headlines during the past few years with her consumer personal robot named Jibo.

The study, which began last month, is "developing and evaluating an autonomous personalized social robot tutor-companion that can engage preschool children in storytelling activities during a long-term interaction," the grant abstract says. "The project advances the fields of autonomous storytelling generation and analysis, as well as the interaction between autonomous social robots and preschool children to promote learning." The research will likely continue through the summer of 2017.