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Children worldwide are becoming increasingly inactive, leading to significant wellness challenges. Initial findings from our research team indicate that robots could potentially provide a more effective approach (compared to other age-appropriate toys) for encouraging physical activity in children. However, the basis of this past work relied on either interactions with groups of children (making it challenging to isolate specific factors that influenced activity levels) or a preliminary version of results of the present study (which centered on just a single more exploratory method for assessing child movement). This paper delves into more controlled interactions involving a single robot and a child participant, while also considering observations over an extended period to mitigate the influence of novelty on the study outcomes. We discuss the outcomes of a two-month-long deployment, during which $N=8$ participants engaged with our custom robot, GoBot, in weekly sessions. During each session, the children experienced three different conditions: a teleoperated robot mode, a semi-autonomous robot mode, and a control condition in which the robot was present but inactive. Compared to our past related work, the results expanded our findings by confirming with greater clout (based on multiple data streams, including one more robust measure compared to the past related work) that children tended to be more physically active when the robot was active, and interestingly, there were no significant differences between the teleoperated and semi-autonomous modes in terms of our study measures. These insights can inform future applications of assistive robots in child motor interventions, including the guiding of appropriate levels of autonomy for these systems. This study demonstrates that incorporating robotic systems into play environments can boost physical activity in young children, indicating potential implementation in settings crafted to enhance children’s physical movement.

Background: Play is critical for children’s physical, cognitive, and social development. Technology-based toys like robots are especially of interest to children. This pilot study explores the affordances of the play area provided by developmentally appropriate toys and a mobile socially assistive robot (SAR). The objective of this study is to assess the role of the SAR on physical activity, play behavior, and toy-use behavior of children during free play.Methods: Six children (5 females, Mage = 3.6 ± 1.9 years) participated in the majority of our pilot study’s seven 30-minute-long weekly play sessions (4 baseline and 3 intervention). During baseline sessions, the SAR was powered off. During intervention sessions, the SAR was teleoperated to move in the play area and offered rewards of lights, sounds, and bubbles to children. Thirty-minute videos of the play sessions were annotated using a momentary time sampling observation system. Mean percentage of time spent in behaviors of interest in baseline and intervention sessions were calculated. Paired-Wilcoxon signed rank tests were conducted to assess differences between baseline and intervention sessions.Results: There was a significant increase in children’s standing (∼15%; Z = −2.09; p = 0.037) and a tendency for less time sitting (∼19%; Z = −1.89; p = 0.059) in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. There was also a significant decrease (∼4.5%, Z = −2.70; p = 0.007) in peer interaction play and a tendency for greater (∼4.5%, Z = −1.89; p = 0.059) interaction with adults in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. There was a significant increase in children’s interaction with the robot (∼11.5%, Z = −2.52; p = 0.012) in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase.Conclusion: These results may indicate that a mobile SAR provides affordances through rewards that elicit children’s interaction with the SAR and more time standing in free play. This pilot study lays a foundation for exploring the role of SARs in inclusive play environments for children with and without mobility disabilities in real-world settings like day-care centers and preschools.