June 27, 2005— RUBI the robot and its robotic partner QRIO are teaching preschoolers daily and receiving appreciative hugs at the Early Childhood Education Center on the University of California, San Diego, campus where the robots were born.

On duty since April, the robots are the first humanoid devices to be used regularly in a classroom for long periods.

"RUBI is a tool for teachers, the same way pencils and books are tools for teachers," said project leader Javier Movellan. "I believe our teachers deserve the best tools science and technology can offer them."

Movellan, director of UCSD's Machine Perception Lab, added, "(Teachers) tell us the things they like and the things they don't like ... In the process, RUBI is helping researchers and teachers imagine new ways of teaching and is helping us to see the magic of daily life in a classroom environment."

For now, RUBI and QRIO, which stands for Quest for Curiosity, serve as assistant teachers, according to a UCSD press release.

Described as "soft, warm and pleasantly plump," RUBI cannot yet hug students back. But it is equipped with real-time face detection, eye detection, eye-blink detection and expression recognition software.

It teaches the preschoolers songs and has a touch screen on its belly that presents interactive games on colors, shapes and other subjects. A tickle in the tummy area makes RUBI giggle.

The researchers, in collaboration with Sony Corporation, gave RUBI two cameras for eyes and a third, omnidirectional camera for peripheral vision. Five high-powered CPUs form the body, with an additional 24 at the back reserved for experiments. A modified IKEA "Ilen" TV bench houses the main hardware.

QRIO, which can walk, is 23 inches tall and weighs just over 15 pounds. It engages children in play and exercise activities. State-of-the-art autonomous technologies give it the ability to dance and respond to humans.

After a long day of dancing, QRIO lies down on the floor and goes to "sleep," or shutdown mode. Children and teachers often place a blanket over the robot and wish it "night-night."

"Up to now, the children have been very positive to the robots," Movellan told Discovery News. "They jump up and down like little monkeys when they see RUBI or QRIO. When I come without RUBI they ask, 'Where's RUBI?'"

Hiroshi Ishiguro, one of the world's leading experts in interactive robots, a professor at Osaka University and a group leader in ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communications Laboratories, was not surprised to learn about the success of The RUBI Project.

Ishiguro told Discovery News that he and his colleagues have performed shorter field tests using an interactive robot named Robovie, which has worked in a Japanese elementary school and an Osaka science museum.

Ishiguro thinks such robots are not just for kids. "They will be the communication media (of the future)," he said. "Interactive robots are better than computers and cell phones from the standpoint of human-machine interface."