The Arm-a-Dine robotic arm can detect facial expressions.
An Australian research lab has created a robotic arm that will feed you food, but with a catch: the eater has to smile.
"There is an increasing trend in HCI (human–computer interaction) on studying human-food interaction, however, we find that most work so far seems to focus on what happens to the food before and during eating," says RMIT University's Exertion Games Lab.
The lack of research on using interactive technology to augment the eating experience lead the Lab to develop Arm-a-Dine: a robotic third arm attached to a vest equipped with a camera that can detect facial expressions.
The arms are meant to be worn in pairs, as it requires an eating partner to function.
Exertion Games Lab explains that Arm-A-Dine is networked so the arm is controlled by the affective responses of a person’s dining partner.
If they smile, the robot arm will feed them. If they frown, the arm will feed the person wearing it.
“Mapping of the partner’s ‘more positive’ facial expression to the feeding of food to the partner, we hoped, would elicit joy, laughter, and a sense of sharing based on the knowledge of feeding one another that is associated with positive emotions,” it says.
To add an element of randomness, if both users have neutral expressions, the arm will decide who to feed.
The machine’s range of motions is still quite crude, requiring users to position food right below the hand so it can grab from the plate, while the arm also stops 10cm away from a person’s face for safety reasons.
This means users have to lunge at their food when it’s close enough.
Based on some tests, Exertion Games Lab found that users enjoyed their meals more as they had to put more active effort into the eating process and also pay attention to their eating partners.
Some users also noted that having to pay attention to their partners also translated to better conversation and being less distracted by their phones.
Unfortunately, this means users will still have to pay attention while eating, instead of finally being able to play with their phones and eat hands-free.
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