Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

RoboRecycle Buddy: Enhancing Early Childhood Green Education and Recycling Habits Through Playful Interaction with a Social Robot

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Intelligent Human Computer Interaction (IHCI 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14531))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 105 Accesses

Abstract

The escalating environmental challenges faced by our world today make it imperative to instill eco-friendly habits and environmental awareness in young children, who will be at the forefront of addressing these issues in the future. In this paper, we present the “RoboRecycle Buddy”, a voice and chat GPT-integrated social robot designed to enhance early childhood green education and foster positive recycling habits through playful interaction. By incorporating engaging, voice feedback-based educational content, the RoboRecycle Buddy aims to make learning about recycling enjoyable, accessible, and relevant to children, while simultaneously sparking their interest in the rapidly growing field of robotics. We discuss the design, development, and implementation of the RoboRecycle Buddy, highlighting its innovative features such as object recognition, face recognition, and natural voice interaction which encourages children to practice responsible waste disposal. The robot leverages advanced voice recognition technology and the GPT language model, enabling it to engage in contextually relevant conversations with children, both through voice and text, further enhancing their learning experience. The robot is equipped with an image recognition module based on a Convolutional Neural Network, enabling it to detect and classify waste materials in a manner similar to a child, i.e., by simply looking at them. We emphasize the importance of providing a supportive learning environment that encourages children to explore, question, and develop a deeper understanding of the recycling process. The paper concludes with a discussion on future research and development directions, including potential improvements and adaptations to the RoboRecycle Buddy, as well as broader implications for the field of Child-Robot Interaction.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Manisalidis, I., Stavropoulou, E., Stavropoulos, A., Bezirtzoglou, E.: Environmental and health impacts of air pollution: a review. Front. Public Health 14 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Cavallo, E., Noy, I.: Natural disasters and the economy - a survey. Int. Rev. Environ. Resour. Econ. 5(1), 63–102 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Debrah, J.K., Vidal, D.G., Dinis, M.A.P.: Raising awareness on solid waste management through formal education for sustainability: a developing countries evidence review. Recycling 6(1), 6 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Teixeira, G., Bremm, L., dos Santos Roque, A.: Educational robotics insertion in high schools to promote environmental awareness about e-waste. In: 2018 Latin American Robotic Symposium, 2018 Brazilian Symposium on Robotics (SBR) and 2018 Workshop on Robotics in Education (WRE), pp. 591–597 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  5. DeCoito, I., Myszkal, P.: Connecting science instruction and teachers’ self-efficacy and beliefs in stem education. J. Sci. Teach. Educ. 29(6), 485–503 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Saunders, R., McFarland-Piazza, L., Jacobvitz, D., Hazen-Swann, N., Burton, R.: Maternal knowledge and behaviors regarding discipline: the effectiveness of a hands-on education program in positive guidance. J. Child Fam. Stud. 22(3), 322–334 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ma, J., Tucker, C.S., Kremer, G.E.O., Jackson, K.L.: Exposure to digital and hands-on delivery modes in engineering design education and their impact on task completion efficiency. J. Integrated Des. Process Sci. 21(2), 61–78 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Ekwueme, C.O., Ekon, E.E., Ezenwa-Nebife, D.C.: The impact of hands-on-approach on student academic performance in basic science and mathematics. High. Educ. Stud. 5(6), 47–51 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Rothe, I.: Organization of a Lego-robots contest offered to high school kids by engineering students within a project based learning environment. In: 2014 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pp. 36–39 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ball, C.L.: Sparking passion: engaging student voice through project-based learning in learning communities. Learn. Commun. Res. Pract. 4(1), 9 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Albo-Canals, J., et al.: A pilot study of the KIBO robot in children with severe ASD. Int. J. Soc. Robot. 10, 371–383 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Alves-Oliveira, P., Arriaga, P., Paiva, A., Hoffman, G.: Guide to build YOLO, a creativity-stimulating robot for children. HardwareX 6, e00074 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Kasibhatla, R., Mahmud, S., Sourave, R.H., Arnett, M., Kim, J.H.: Design of a smart puppet theatre system for computational thinking education. In: Kim, J.H., Singh, M., Khan, J., Tiwary, U.S., Sur, M., Singh, D. (eds.) IHCI 2021. LNCS, vol. 13184, pp. 301–312. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98404-5_29

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Castellano, G., De Carolis, B., D’Errico, F., Macchiarulo, N., Rossano, V.: PeppeReCycle: improving children’s attitude toward recycling by playing with a social robot. Int. J. Soc. Robot. 13, 97–111 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Vega, J., Cañas, J.M.: PiBot: an open low-cost robotic platform with camera for stem education. Electronics 7(12) (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Shukla, M., Shukla, A.N.: Growth of robotics industry early in 21st century. Int. J. Comput. Eng. Res. 2(5), 1554–1558 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Gottfredson, L.S.: Circumscription and compromise: a developmental theory of occupational aspirations. J. Couns. Psychol. 28(6), 545 (1981)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Alcorn, A.M., et al.: Educators’ views on using humanoid robots with autistic learners in special education settings in England. Front. Robot. AI 6 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Laban, G., Cross, E.S., Henschel, A.: What makes a robot social? A review of social robots from science fiction to a home or hospital near you. Curr Robot Rep 2, 9–19 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. van Straten, C.L., Peter, J., Kühne, R.: Child-robot relationship formation: a narrative review of empirical research. Int. J. Soc. Robot. 12, 325–344 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Serholt, S., Barendregt, W.: Robots tutoring children: longitudinal evaluation of social engagement in child-robot interaction. In: Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, NordiCHI 2016. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Arnett, M., Mahmud, S., Sourave, R.H., Kim, J.H.: Smart trashcan brothers: early childhood environmental education through green robotics. In: Kim, J.H., Singh, M., Khan, J., Tiwary, U.S., Sur, M., Singh, D. (eds.) IHCI 2021. LNCS, vol. 13184, pp. 313–324. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98404-5_30

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Al Neyadi, O.S.: The effects of using games to reinforce vocabulary learning (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Russell, J.V.: Using games to teach chemistry: an annotated bibliography. J. Chem. Educ. 76(4), 481 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Farrell, D., et al.: Computer games to teach hygiene: an evaluation of the e-bug junior game. J. Antimicrob. Chemother. 66(suppl_5), v39–v44 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Vanbecelaere, S., Van den Berghe, K., Cornillie, F., Sasanguie, D., Reynvoet, B., Depaepe, F.: The effectiveness of adaptive versus non-adaptive learning with digital educational games. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 36(4), 502–513 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Gaggi, O., Meneghello, F., Palazzi, C.E., Pante, G.: Learning how to recycle waste using a game. In: Proceedings of the 6th EAI International Conference on Smart Objects and Technologies for Social Good, pp. 144–149 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Santti, U., Happonen, A., Auvinen, H.: Digitalization boosted recycling: gamification as an inspiration for young adults to do enhanced waste sorting. In: AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 2233, p. 050014. AIP Publishing LLC (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  29. de Jesús Luis González Ibánez, J., Wang, A.I.: Learning recycling from playing a Kinect game. Int. J. Game-Based Learn. (IJGBL) 5(3), 25–44 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Johal, W., Castellano, G., Tanaka, F., Okita, S.: Robots for learning (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Jeong, S., et al.: A social robot to mitigate stress, anxiety, and pain in hospital pediatric care. In: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction Extended Abstracts, pp. 103–104 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Mahmud, S., Sourave, R.H., Islam, M., Lin, X., Kim, J.-H.: A vision based voice controlled indoor assistant robot for visually impaired people. In: 2020 IEEE International IOT, Electronics and Mechatronics Conference (IEMTRONICS), pp. 1–6. IEEE (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Roseberry, S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R.M.: Skype me! socially contingent interactions help toddlers learn language. Child Dev. 85(3), 956–970 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Allan Allday, R., Pakurar, K.: Effects of teacher greetings on student on-task behavior. J. Appl. Behav. Anal. 40(2), 317–320 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Allan Allday, R., Bush, M., Ticknor, N., Walker, L.: Using teacher greetings to increase speed to task engagement. J. Appl. Behav. Anal. 44(2), 393–396 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. OpenAI - OpenAI.com. https://openai.com/. Accessed 16 Apr 2023

  37. Lin, T.Y., et al.: Microsoft COCO: common objects in context. In: Fleet, D., Pajdla, T., Schiele, B., Tuytelaars, T. (eds.) Computer Vision ECCV 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 8693, pp. 740–755. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10602-1_48

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  38. Garbage Classification. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/sumn2u/garbage-classification-v2. Accessed 14 Apr 2023

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science and Information Systems, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    Saifuddin Mahmud

  2. ATR Lab, Computer Science, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA

    Zina Kamel & Jong-Hoon Kim

  3. Computer Science, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Aditi Singh

Authors
  1. Saifuddin Mahmud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zina Kamel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Aditi Singh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jong-Hoon Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jong-Hoon Kim .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Bong Jun Choi

  2. Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Dhananjay Singh

  3. Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India

    Uma Shanker Tiwary

  4. Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea (Republic of)

    Wan-Young Chung

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Mahmud, S., Kamel, Z., Singh, A., Kim, JH. (2024). RoboRecycle Buddy: Enhancing Early Childhood Green Education and Recycling Habits Through Playful Interaction with a Social Robot. In: Choi, B.J., Singh, D., Tiwary, U.S., Chung, WY. (eds) Intelligent Human Computer Interaction. IHCI 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14531. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53827-8_29

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53827-8_29

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-53826-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-53827-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation