Sophie is a virtual robot that lives in a Kitchen World, she interacts with people to learn how to bake cakes. At Media Lab, they are doing a research study about how people teach her.  We hope people can have fun teaching this little task to Sophie and we can learn a little about the teaching process along the way!  If you volunteer for our study, you’ll to play the Sophie game online and then fill out a survey.

Meet Sophie here…

http://robotpatrol.media.mit.edu/kitchen/

This game is being used as a research platform to learn a little about how they can allow people easily teach machines new things. In this study, players teach the Sophie robot agent to bake a cake. While watching the agent try to bake the cake on her own, players teach by sending various messages via the mouse.

Their hope is that people can have fun teaching an agent a simple little task, and that they can learn a little about the teaching process along the way.

Tags: constructivism, learning technology, microworlds, new technology