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Conversation Fillers (CFs), such as `um', `hmm', and `ah', may help to improve the human-robot interaction by smoothening the robot's responses. This paper presents the design and test of such CFs - alongside iconic pensive or acknowledging gestures - for Wizard of Oz (WoZ) controlled open-ended dialogues in child-robot interactions. A controlled experiment with 26 children showed that these CFs can improve the perceived speediness, aliveness, humanness, and likability of the robot, without decreasing perceptions of intelligence, trustworthiness, or autonomy.

ALIZ-E is a Europe-wide project focusing on long-term child-robot interaction, specifically as a means of educating diabetic children on their condition. This video showcases a recent field study at "SugarKidsClub", a camp devoted to helping 7-12 year-olds handle type-1 diabetes. A wide range of CRI activities developed by ALIZ-E were employed, including a large "SandTray" touch table running a tile-sorting game and a "Handshake" touch-inducing activity designed to strengthen the child-robot bond. Apart from helping kids with their unfortunate affliction, the day at "SugarKidsClub" provided us a chance to use new technologies developed for the aforementioned activities as well as furthering our relationship with our primary stakeholders. This playful video highlights some of the footage taken that day within an entertaining story centered on Charlie, one of the NAO robots used for our field study with a pension for battery theft.