Tico is a social robot developed by Adele Robots and designed to interact with humans in different environments, primarily promotional events and in education as a helper for the teacher.
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Initially created by Treelogic in 2007 as a research platform for Human-Robot Interaction, it has participated in several R&D projects like ACROSS[1] and being tested in supermarkets and schools.
Since 2010, it is commercially available and further developed by Adele Robots.
Tico's appearance has been designed by Antonio Granado and has produce quite controversy due to it resemblance to Disney's Character Wall-e[2][3]
The first version of Tico´s hardware included a laser range finder and ultrasonic sensors for obstacle detection, and a camera for tracking people and read QR codes. It also had a touch screen to interact with it. Its head and neck has 6 degrees of freedom, moves on a differential with two high torque EC gear-motors, and runs Ubuntu 9.10 on an Intel Core Duo 1.6Ghz. It stands 150 cm (5′) tall and weighs 85 kg (187 lbs). A new fresh battery allowed it to run freely for 8 hours.
Tico has been being tested as a pedagogic tool for teachers to improve children's motivation and gain their attetion. Since 2009 several tests have been conducted and results seems promising.[4]