British technology company Consequential Robotics Ltd. has been working on improving the MiRo robot, and had the third generation of this very cute robot on display at the London Tech Week 2019. MiRo-E as it is called, gives the hint of its new found educational companionship capabilities. The MiRo-E is the third generation of the MiRo robot family, and still retains the same lovable looks and personality as before. But what has changed is the new software, new hardware and specifications as well as the much greater computing power it now possesses makes it ideal as a companion for the students as they learn the STEM subjects. Simply put, these are the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects taught in classrooms around the world.
Inside the MiRo-E is a Raspberry Pi 3B+ computing system which runs a quad core processor clocking at 1.4GHz, with 1GB of RAM, 16GB micro-SD for running the software and has a new MiRoCODE coding interface as well which can be deployed via a web browser on a PC to program the MiRo for certain educational purposes—this uses the Blockly coding language, which offers more flexibility than Python programming language. In each of MiRo’s eyes are two 720p HD cameras which can do face detection, has a proximity sensor, 28 capacitive touch sensors which allow MiRo to respond to different touch and now has a strengthened construction as well. We had a chance to interact with the MiRo-E at the London Tech Week, and this is perhaps one of the most
“MiRo is intended to be engaging, to appeal to everyone, and to interact in a natural way. It is essential that the students of today learn to program the devices of the future,” says Prof. Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield and Co-Founder of Consequential Robotics, while describing the third generation of the MiRo.
Consequential Robotics says that the MiRo is presently being used in institutions globally, including the Bristol Robotics Lab in the UK, Hong Kong Science museum, Trinity College in Dublin, University of Melbourne in Australia and the University of Wisconsin in the US.
"My department and I are committed to take the India-UK partnership to the highest possible level and I am excited to be helping more UK-based companies unlock the trading opportunities. As Prime Minister Modi looks at increasing more FDI opportunities to bolster India's economy, this is particularly an exciting time to work with Indian partners and companies," says Crispin Simon, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for South Asia.
Each MiRo-E is priced around £ 2450 and one of these devices can work in a classroom which has as many as 40 students.
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