Meet Hookie
A social robot for children with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder
From DYNA TECH 2012 we want to introduce you to Hookie, a social robot whose objective is to help children between 7 and 14 years old with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder in the social and educational field. Hookie has two main functions:
Educational
Hookie can run applications and software for special education, adding the advantages of a Smartphone interface and a body with many degrees of freedom. Thanks to Hookie, special education programs can easily and affordably reach families as they can be used at home without the constant help of a special educator or therapist.Social
Hookie can interact and play actively with children, reacting to their facial expressions, their movements and their responses. In short, it's like adding tips to applications like Siri (iPhone's personal assistant), which has already proven successful in dealing with children with autism.
The Hookie Project
In recent decades, the number of diagnosed cases of Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) has increased significantly; nowadays, 1 out of 68 children are diagnosed with ASD, and each year there are about 75,000 newborns with ASD in Europe. Recent studies have shown that robotics can play a very important role in this field by alleviating the financial cost of families and improving the quality of educational and social assistance for children.Affordable
Thanks to the absence of a fixed user interface and the user can connect his own Smartphone and other available elements, Hookie will be the cheapest functional robot (not just a toy) capable of interacting with children, affordable for families so they can use it at home.
Open and customizable
People dedicated to helping children with ASD can contribute to the design of activities and new functionalities of Hookie thanks to its open software platform. Family, therapists and friends will also be able to use Hookie's 3D printed component libraries to fully customize Hookie.
December 15, 2016
We are very happy because the Hookie project begins to catch the attention of who gets to know it. In this case, we were fortunate enough to receive the call from LaSexta, part of the ATRESMEDIA group, who wanted to include a small report on Hookie in his news program of laSexta […]
December 12, 2016
We did it! Dyna Tech, together with our Dutch partners VanPaz, have been awarded with the first phase of a Horizon2020 SME Instrument grant with a score of 14,18/15. After a few months of continuous improvement in the presentation of the project proposal, we have entered within the privileged 10% that obtain […]
November 30, 2016
After the success of Hookie at the New Friends 2016 congress, getting a second place on the vote of the public to the best social robot, we want to do a little compilation of the press releases that have been appearing in the different mass media. We were very happy to see […]
November 2, 2016
From the 2nd to the 4th of November, the second edition of the New Friends 2016, an international conference on social robotics applied in therapy, assistance and education took place in La Salle Barcelona-URL Campus, organized by Jordi Albó, General Chairman of the congress. The best of all … the Dyna Tech […]