Our third session of the AI Reading Group featured the paper "Doodlebot: An educational robot for creativity and AI literacy" which presents Doodlebot, a multi-functional and affordable educational robot specifically designed for K-12 students. Doodlebot stands out for its capacity to teach complex AI concepts in an accessible way, blending creativity with AI learning through hands-on activities like programming, drawing, and autonomous navigation. By supporting multiple learning modes, Doodlebot opens up new possibilities for AI education in schools, equipping young learners with essential skills for an AI-driven world.
Paper link: dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3610977.3634950
About the authors:
Safinah Ali is a PhD candidate at the Personal Robots Group within the MIT Media Lab. Her research focuses on how young children engage with AI and how it impacts their creativity. She designs and studies robotic technologies aimed at fostering creative learning. Her work includes developing child-robot interactions to support behavioral learning, including curiosity, creativity, and a growth mindset. Safinah also creates inclusive AI literacy curricula and educational materials for K-12 students and teachers. In addition to her research, she enjoys creating art, games, and robots, and teaches K-12 students about robotics and game design.
Isabella Pu is a Master’s student at the MIT Media Lab, where she researches how social robots and AI can enhance children's learning in the Personal Robots Group. She has developed robot and AI systems to teach social-emotional learning and introduce engineering and AI concepts through interactive storybooks and minigames. Her work has been published in the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication and earned her the RSJ Pioneering Research Award in Robot and Human Interactive Communication. Isabella also leads workshops and has designed curricula for high school students, empowering them to design GenAI tools and policies, and enjoys mentoring robotics, video games, and music composition.