English-Teaching Robots Arrive in Korea

English teaching robots have arrived in South Korea!  As reported in the Joongang Daily, the Daegu Office of Education introduced 29 robot teachers in 21 elementary schools.  The 1-meter (3.28 feet) egg-shaped robot, named “Engkey” (an abbreviation of English key), spoke, asked questions and conversed in English with students, and even entertained the crowd by dancing to music.  (Click on the accompanying graphic to see a full size version.)

From my point of view, one of the most interesting aspects of this experiment is that these robots are linked to real live teachers. These teachers control the machines by remote from the Philippines. They have cameras to record their faces - which show up on a flat panel screen that forms the robo-teacher’s face - and they can also see the Korean students through a camera installed in the robot. Basically, the robot is a rolling Internet link between students and teacher, although the human teacher can also command the robot to make human gestures with its arms and wheels.

No doubt this news is going to strike a chord with many of the expatriate English teachers now living and working in South Korea.   It is also an interesting bit of evidence to support Korea's ambitious goals for the future of its robotics industry!  Comments welcome!

Korea's Ambitious Goals for the Robotics Industry

As reported in The Korea Times, the Knowledge Economy Ministry has announced that it will channel $26.3 million next year alone in an effort to become one of the three world powers in the robot industry by 2018.  This has been one of the government's goals for several years now, as noted in earlier posts.

Korea is seeking to capitalize on the global transition from a focus on mass production models to service robots.  Presently, Korea's global market share is about ten percent.  It seeks to double that figure by 2018.  That means that Asia’s fourth-largest economy is looking to earn as much as $20 billion a year in 2018 as the world market is expected to grow to $100 billion by then from today’s $10 billion.

The article notes that growth of the robotics industry is expected to positively effect related businesses such as motors, sensors, actuators, displays and chips.

English Teaching Robots in South Korea

South Korea has targeted the robotics industry, specifically intelligent service robots, as a growth industry for the future.  An interesting recent development in this field is the introduction of Engkey, and English-teaching robot, into elementary school classrooms in Seoul.  Engkey is a penguin-shaped robot developed by a team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology's (KIST) Center for Intelligent Robotics that recognizes the human voice.   Read the New York Times account for an interesting description of how Engkey interacts with school children.

The introduction of Engkey (click on graphic at left to see a full-size version) was part of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology's plans to use robots as teaching aids.  In February, the Ministry began deploying hundreds of them as part of a plan to equip all 8,400 of the nation's kindergartens with robots by 2013.

Work at the Center for Intelligent Robotics illustrates Korea's ambitious plans for the robotics industry. Last month, it announced a trial service for 11 types of intelligent robots this year. They include “kiosk robots” to roam amusement parks selling tickets, and “robo soldiers” that will man part of the 155-mile border with North Korea with a never-sleeping camera eye, night vision and lethal fire power.

Stickybot: The Global Nature of New Technology

Stickybot" is a quadruped robot capable of climbing smooth surfaces, such as glass, acrylic and whiteboard using directional adhesive.  What is more interesting for the purpose of this post is that Sangbae Kim, a Korean Ph.D. student at Stanford University, was the lead designer of this amazing little robot.  A graduate of Yonsei University, Sangbae has already completed an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford and is working on his Ph.D with a special focus on bio-inspired robots.  If you doubt at all that this is inspirational work, please view the embedded video of "Stickybot" in action.  In the mid-1990s I taught for two years at the National University of Singapore and on more than one occasion I fell asleep after watching a tiny gecko crawl across the ceiling of my bedroom.  The biological similarities to real geckos that Kim Sangbae and his team have captured are truly amazing!  For those of you wishing to explore this in more depth, I recommend Mr. Kim's website.

All of this is very significant in light of my earlier posts about South Korea's goals for its robotics industry. Korea has declared its intent to focus on service robots, including networked robots.  It requires only a little imagination to think about what future versions of "Stickybot" and other biomimetic robots might offer in this regard.

Kim Sangbae has, appropriately, received many accolades for his work.  What I'd like to stress here are the following aspects of this story.

• It shows clearly that advanced technology development these days is inherently global or transnational. 


• Korea's future technology development and competitiveness will draw on students educated in Korea, the U.S. and other parts of the world.


• It seems that South Korea has a bright future in robotics.

I hope you all enjoy the video!  More on this topic in future posts.

Korea Aims for Top Three Nations in Robotics

The Korean government aims to develop its domestic robotics industry into one of the world’s top three by 2013, officials said in April 2009. According to an article in the Joongang Ilbo, the government plans to spend 1 trillion won on research and development in the robot sector over the next five years, which will likely allow Korea to take a 13.3 percent share of the worldwide robotics market, according to the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy’s report to President Lee Myung-bak. In terms of production, the Korean robot industry ranked fifth as of last year, followed by Japan, the United States, Germany and Italy, according to the ministry.

Korea’s global market share stands at 8.9 percent, with exports topping $180 million.

More state research investment would help raise the size of the domestic market, from the current 896 billion won to 4 trillion won in 2013, while the world market for robotics is expected to reach $30 billion by the same year.  Since 2002, the government has invested an average of 82.1 billion won annually in robots. Specifically, the government plans to develop robots that are capable of performing surgery, acting as security guards, farming, doing housework and navigating submarines and aircraft.