Roball, the Rolling Robot

Designing a mobile robotic toy is challenging work. The robot must be appealing to children and create interesting interactions while facing the wide variety of situations that can be experienced while playing with a child, and all at a reasonable cost. In this paper we present Roball, a ball-shaped robot that moves by making its external spherical shell rotate. Such design for a mobile robotic toy shows robustness in handling unstructured environments and unconstrained interactions with children. Results show that purposeful movements of the robot, its physical structure and locomotion dynamics generate interesting new games influenced by the environment and the child.