Hi guys and welcome, I’m Philip English from RoboPhil.com and on this video, we are doing an interview with Amy Sigalov from Optimusic. We managed to speak to Aimee at Autism Show 2015 which is held at the Excel Center in London.
Optimusic invents and patents interactive light beam technology and at the core of the business it has Opti-beam multi media control system, the solution allows the magical combination of musical activities, images, interactive games and lots of fun. They’re experts in software and hardware designs which allows them to create flexibility when it comes to implementing new ideas on making customize applications and they recently taken on the Aldebaran NAO robot to add to their collection.
Philip: Hi guys! Philip English at RoboPhil. So I’m here today at the Autism Show and with the Optimusic guys and we got Amy.
Amy: Hi! Hi everyone!
Philip: Today we are just looking to get a view on how the Autism show is actually using their robots particularly the NAO robot, so if I may give a few questions Aimee, can you give us a quick overview of Optimusic?
Amy: Sure. Optimusic is a company that specialising in light interactive technology and we have our music system, we have our fitness system, we do everything with LEDs pretty much, and then we have the NAO robot.
Philip: Right! Brilliant! I can see, you’ve got a mixture and then I understand that you got the use of NAO and because you want to integrate it with your current products that you actually have, mostly you have light beams and music interact the NAO with it as well.
Amy: Well, we are very much sort of forward thinking, you know, with the future, the robots, you know, is one of the biggest part of that and I think in time we will be able to get to play with our technologies, as you know NAO is a programmable robots so we get them to move about.
Philip: Well, it is, yeah. I mean like you can get him, you know, you can use your programming skills, you can use its video cameras, you can use its senses, and lots of different things you can developed the actual NAO. Right! That’s brilliant! So how do you use the robot then? you got him in today, you got him with the lights, I mean what sort of activities, you wish to do with the robot.
Amy: Day to day basis, we are looking at programming, we tried a little bit with ourselves, we sort of make him dance to go with the theme of music, that’s really handy. We are able to input our own tracks and get him to move to it and what we do a lot of workshops in schools and got it anywhere that they can sort of plan what the robot does and more advance we show them how to program the robots and its quite versatile and always un.
Philip: So yeah! So you’re telling me about the robot, you take the robot into school, there will be classroom with kids, you know, sit down and they can do some programming, sort of thing you do with the robot there?
Amy: Yeah! Exactly. Whether its special needs in school or mainstream, you know, we’ll start with an introduction, some schools are supposed just to do it an assembly were can show the whole school, when it does its about twenty minutes, or we’ll have those more intense workshops, we’ll do classes for different ages, different disabilities, and you know, we get to see how well the robot works with each of these types of kids.
Philip: Yeah! That’s what caught my interest, because supposed you got different age groups, you’re gonna be use different set of programs and different set of tools.
Amy: Sorry. The older children you can teach them about programming side, I mean that is particularly good for autism given we are at the Autism show, you know a lot of children prefer to sort of like their computer, they like the safety of the screen, they can manipulate the robot the way they want to.
Philip: Okay. That is it, I mean I’ve been to few programming schools and I’ve seen on how the NAO works, and again you got the basic games, some of the the younger kids they like, they get some mass games, some english games, as you saying and as supposed as you got through the levels, you got more more advance, you developed the skills, so supposed with the thing about the NAO robot, you seems to go across many different classes and many different lessons as well as education.
Amy: Yeah, that’s a lot you can do with it.
Philip: Okay. What sort of applications you’ve been doing with the NAO, I always notice animal cards around here, so it that a game you guys play?
Amy: Yeah! It’s basically the NAO’s recognition and how he, you know, deciphers an object, cards, he can do it with the motions, the card game is a good example, basically, he’ll ask you to find a card, you guys show the card that you pick and he recognise if you got it right and in most cases as well if you got it wrong, he’s be able to tell you, “No, it’s not that, it’s this” instead.
Phiip: Okay.
Amy: He does it in a way that makes sort of the use to make them feel they are not wrong, you know, they’ve, you know, yeah!
Philip: No, I mean, it makes sense. I see what you mean. So if he ask for a cat or a dog, and then you show him a goat or something, then he say “oh no, unfortunately, you got it wrong, that’s a goat. So that is part of the Autism solution pack that you actually get with the NAO?
Amy: It was build for autism, you know, it entertains kids, any age really, it’s fascinating, the fact that he’s, you know, the fact that you’re able to interact with him
Philip: Okay. I mean with the autism solution, you got the animal card game, I think I’ve seen a Guess Sports game
Amy: Yeah! That’s right! Yeah, Guess Sports, so he acts out the sport and you have to guess and sometimes gives an option as well and another one is a motion, he’ll go like this and ask you whether he is angry, sad or happy, it is a good way as well for kids to understand emotion, particularly with autism can sometimes be difficult to distinguish.
Philip: You got added advanøce, you could repeat the actual games again and again and again, and it’s the thing with the kids with Autism, they want to see again and again, and if it is a person or a parent doing it, eventually they get tired out but the robot maybe it can get going and going and going. To finish out, I have one more question, so who will be interested mainly for this products, is it schools or colleges?
Amy: Usually, it benefits the school and colleges but hopefully, you know, personal
Philip: And I see that on the Aldebaran website, that guys are trying to get the robot on every home, so I guess your robot will reach it eventually, if you got a child with autism, you can have one of these at your home
Amy: Well, it is good for one to one, personalising it to the child, where as I guess with the school, you know, you’ve only got so many licenses what can be than, but one to one, the child can program it themselves, the parents knowing what the child likes, you know, I think that it is what it’s actually designed for. But it is used in schools, it has programs, you know, good morning class, will ask you question like a teacher, I think the schools are worried that they are going to replace the teachers eventually.
Philip: Yeah! Yeah! Never knowing in years to come. Yeah! Yeah! Well this is it, I think this is the future like with the robot, it is really seeing where it takes us sort of thing. One last question, it was just going out my mind so quickly, just forgotten the application and who uses it, for the NAO robot, oh yes! Obviously, I understand that, you’ve come with autism solution but this is a package that constantly growing, new applications, new developers and this is the thing
Amy: That is what I’m going to say, you know, it is like the technologies these days, iPads, sort of android, tables and you’ve been constantly update it, the content is downloadable.
Phiip: Okay! That’s great. Thanks for your time Amy. Very much appreciate it. So guys, this is the Optimusic guys and they have a robot in their collection and with their other products, light, music and beams. And yeah, we are keeping an eye on to these guys. Maybe another interview in the future to see where we are.
Amy: Thank you!
Philip: Cool! Thank you!
Brilliant Thanks Guys, I hope you enjoyed the interview and I want to say a big thank you to Amy Sigalov from Optimusic for her time and the interview.
If you want to learn more about Optimusic, I have put links below for your review.
Optimusic: http://optimusic.com/
Optimusic Interview YouTube: https://youtu.be/TZQ5JCdf-XE
Philip English: https://philipenglish.com
Sponsor: Robot Center: http://www.robotcenter.co.uk