What it does
HAN is an educational robot that helps HFA children build social skills. With Screen Teaching and Interactive Teaching modes, it combines lessons and role-playing. HAN is more than a tool, it’s a teacher and friend, helping children integrate into society.
Your inspiration
Children with high-functioning autism (HFA) have normal intelligence but struggle with social interactions, often facing greater social pressures in regular schools. The lack of treatment resources worsens the situation, with one therapist typically serving around 2,500 children, making personalized therapy nearly impossible. This gap inspired us to explore robot-assisted solutions. We saw that predictable interactions with technology could engage children more effectively. By combining TIP therapy’s structured approach with interactive design, we aimed to create a robot that helps children build social skills with confidence.
How it works
HAN is an educational robot designed to help HFA children improve social skills through structured, engaging interactions. It integrates TIP therapy into two modes: Screen Teaching Mode shows clear lessons on a capacitive display, while Interactive Teaching Mode uses gestures, role-playing, and expressive visuals to reinforce learning. Designed specifically for HFA children, HAN uses continuous small movements and friendly expressions to maintain attention. Gentle, skin-friendly materials and calming colors cater to sensory sensitivities. Equipped with multimodal sensors, it tracks voice, touch, and visual input in real time. A key innovation is its large language model fine-tuned with role-playing datasets, enabling dynamic, context-aware conversations. Custom motion algorithms synchronize gestures and expressions, creating a safe, predictable, and personalized learning experience.
Design process
We started with user research, including a five-week interview series and a six-hour observation of a 5-year-old girl with HFA and her family. We also collaborated with an autism intervention center in Shenzhen, distributing a questionnaire to over 200 parents and gathering 52 valid responses. It helped us identify key challenges: HFA children’s need for order, aversion to human interaction, difficulty maintaining attention, and sensory sensitivities. Based on these insights, we selected TIP (Teaching Interaction Procedure) as the core therapeutic framework. To minimize information overload, we designed a dual-screen setup that separates teaching and interactive zones. We also carefully chose materials and colors to reduce sensory stimulation. We then developed a robot prototype with an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, dual screens (3.15-inch touchscreen and 1.68-inch OLED display), facial recognition camera, microphones, speakers, and servo motors for gestures. The casing was 3D-printed using soft-edged PLA material. A major innovation was fine-tuning a LLM with role-playing datasets, enabling the robot to guide interactive scenarios. After assembling the prototype, we conducted user testing at an intervention center, collecting valuable feedback from therapists and children.
How it is different
HAN is unique for its use of the TIP (Teaching Interaction Procedure) therapy framework, providing a systematic and repeatable approach to teaching social skills. Unlike other robots that focus on isolated aspects like facial expressions or gestures, TIP therapy ensures that each social skill, from greetings to turn-taking, is taught in a structured, repeatable way, allowing children to learn and generalize these skills in real-life situations. HAN covers a comprehensive range of social behaviors, making it adaptable to various learning needs. Additionally, HAN is designed specifically for HFA children. Its dual-screen, dual-function zone setup prevents information overload, separating teaching content from emotional cues. Thoughtful design features, such as gentle movements, soft-edged PLA casing, and calming colors, address sensory sensitivities, ensuring a comfortable and engaging learning experience tailored to HFA children’s needs.
Future plans
In the next five years, I hope HAN will evolve into a widely used tool in autism therapy, reaching a broader user base and influencing children's social development worldwide. Our goal is to further enhance the robot's functionality and expand its application scenarios, leveraging the research resources platform at HIT and continuing collaboration with autism organizations in Shenzhen, who helped us during the research phase. I envision HAN becoming an essential part of personalized education, ultimately improving the lives of many children and their families.
Awards
2025 UX Design Awards; IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication(RO-MAN): Robot Design Competition Best Design Process; International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) + InnoBiz 2024: Robot Design Competition First Prize
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