"Tweenbots" Test NYC Pedestrian-Robot Relations

MBCook recommends Kacie Kinzer's tweenbots page, which documents some of her experiments with small, anthropomorphized robots that need help. Kinzer is writing a thesis (at the Center for the Recently Possible) centered around investigating whether people in New York City will help a cute little robot to get where it's going. "Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal."

Comments

ok, let me get this straight

[Velex]

Men in computer science: robot vision, algorithms to avoid terrain and navigate obstacles, logic, highly advanced everything, etc.

Women in computer science: puts a smiley face on a box on wheels that only goes straight and calls it the same as the above.

What am I missing?

Good god, though, someone give her an award for having a vagina and touching something electronic!