Let's Roll Together: Children Helping a Robot Play a Dice Game

Abstract

Play is an important part of children's lives and playing with social robots could provide powerful interventions, for example in education. However, child-robot play is often restricted by the technical limitations of the robot. Tools like Bluetooth-connected dice could circumvent some of these limitations, but technical limitations can also be resolved in a social way. In this paper, we explore children playing a dice game with a Nao robot. The Nao robot cannot pick up the dice. We compared two modes of helping: rolling for the robot and handing the dice to the robot. The results show that children prefer handing the dice to the robot. They feel the robot is more involved when it physically participates. Children who feel the robot is more involved, enjoy the game more. Finally, we found evidence that helping the robot might even be preferred over the robot not needing any help.