Recent studies have shown that the so-called soft skills or EQ skills (emotional intelligence skills) are as important if not more important than IQ and STEM skills for living a happy, well-balanced life both personally and professionally.
However, there is less emphasis on soft skills or EQ skills in today’s education system.
Moxie helps fill in the gaps by serving as a co-pilot to parents who want to provide social-emotional learning in a revolutionary and interactive way. Who’s Moxie?
Developed by Embodied, a company co-founded by former iRobot CTO Paolo Pirjanian, Moxie is a companion robot made specifically for kids to play with every day.
During a 15- to 25-minute session, your child can chat with Moxie, play some games or read alongside it. Unlike most bots, it’s not just a glorified household appliance.
It can learn to recognize a child’s face and their particular learning needs. In many ways, Moxie brings kids one step closer to having a Star Wars Droid of their very own.
This robot for kids age 5-10 helps promote essential life skills such as: emotion regulation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, meditation, conflict resolution, managing friendships, taking turns, and so much more.
Using play-based learning, or learning through play, kids learn these skills through fun activities such as drawing, reading, storytelling, imaginative play, jokes, and dancing.
Moxie’s influences are clear from the start. Its round head, flipper-like arms and overall frame resemble Eve, the futuristic robot love interest from WALL-E. (A shame Moxie can’t float freely in the air… yet.)
Its “face” is a bulbous screen brought to life with expressive facial animations. That’s a bit of a cheat, but it’s reminiscent of Sonny from the (surprisingly entertaining) I, Robot movie.
Seeing Moxie in action also might remind you of Anki’s fascinating Vector and Cozmo robots, except it’s not just palm-sized. And yes, it bears a disturbingly close resemblance to the Ashley Too home robot from Black Mirror (if you haven’t watched it, I suggest you do).
Even though it’s stuck in one place, Moxie still looks like a real-life Pixar character. It can rotate around its base to keep an eye on playmates with its built-in camera. Its torso smoothly bends up and down, while its arms sometimes resemble an over-excited child.
Practically every element of Moxie is meant to convey a strong sense of personality, from its friendly voice to its enormous puppy-like eyes. To its target audience of kids aged 5 to 10, Moxie practically seems alive.
The science and technology behind Moxie
Powered by Embodied platform, SocialX™, Moxie is able to perceive, process and respond to natural conversation, eye contact, facial expressions and other behavior as well as recognize and recall people, places, and things to create a unique and personalized learning experience for a child.
SocialX™ includes cloud-based software, software that is included in the parent App which is downloadable onto a user’s phone as well as software downloaded onto the robot Moxie.
SocialXChat™ is a part of SocialX™ platform that stimulates conversations between the user and Moxie. It utilizes artificial intelligence to assist Moxie in replying verbally and non-verbally to questions from users who are interfacing with Moxie.
SocialXChat™ includes cloud-based software, software that is included in the parent App which is downloadable onto a user’s phone, as well as software downloaded onto the robot.
You can get a Moxie in your home for the price of USD999 with 12 months of subscription service paid separately (for USD39.99 per month).
The subscription service covers the service of unlimited cloud computing resources (used to process Moxie’s speech recognition) and provides access to the full ecosystem.
