English: Rail Robot Chibi poses with its Roboticist Creators, the MRISAR R&D team. From left; Aurora Anne Siegel, Autumn Marie Siegel, Chibi, Victoria Lee Croasdell-Siegel and John Adrian Siegel. Chibi is a hand crafted interactive rail robot for use in museum environments. Chibi is a bi-lingual host or guide that helps educate and entertain visitors. Robot Chibi was designed by MRISAR’s R&D team and fabricated at MRISAR, a family owned business in North Dakota. Everything from MRISAR is designed and prototyped by two generations of 4 family members, the youngest two Autumn and Aurora Siegel, who as preschoolers started their apprenticeship in art and technology with their parents John and Victoria Lee Croasdell-Siegel. The team goals are humanitarian and educational uses for science, art and technology. The devices created by them are unique in the fact that they are handcrafted, not mass produced. This allows the team to create across a wide range of technologies, applications and elements of science and art. The public use robotic exhibits they create for museums and science centers around the world relate to STEM and STEAM. This two generation team has even invented robotic systems for NASA.

  In developing interactive robotics for public use an important factor is how to relate to humans in a tangible way that transcends the boundaries of notions regarding racial characteristics, body and gender identification stereotypes. Basically to create a generic friendly personality all people can relate to as much as possible. The MRISAR team designed Chibi robot specifically to relate to children. It is small and friendly and not too human. When Chibi is fully assembled, each one has a dome on the top and bottom of its cylindrical body that illuminates with rainbow cascades of vibrant colors of lights. The general details of arms, body structure, eyes and mouth are evident, but kept simple. Components range from black to silver (a basis of skin concepts), with large eyes relating to a childlike appeal. Appendages are small to suggest a gentle nature. Glowing eyes and mouth elements relate back to the changing colors of the top and base domes as they cycle though a range of colors. The voice of the robot is not overly high. The midrange voice suggests a friendly and reassuring non-intimating quality. From a technical vantage this specific device combines electromechanical and mechanical engineered elements with travel limits and Boolean logic, logic circuits, interactive technology and photonics in a personable form of robotic art. The rail system it operates on is designed to relate to a current trend in making robotic devices that are capable of moving to a location of work without being an encumbrance to floor space.  More images of the creation of this and other MRISAR robotic devices can be seen at mrisar.org.

The work of MRISAR’s R&D team has drawn world interest for the public-use educational robotic exhibit prototypes that they create and also for their humanitarian R&D that aims to improve the quality of life. Their work has been presented before and/or published and awarded by: the United Nations, NASA-Emhart, Stanford, Cambridge, ICORR Robotics conferences, ROMAN Robotics conferences, IEEE, Discover Awards, International Federation of Robotics, etc. The “International Federation of Robotics” annual publication on Service Robotics regularly lists MRISAR Institute of Science, Art & Robotics in at least ten categories of robotics. The publication covers major contributors in the field of robotics and within that coverage focuses on the diversity of robotics, worldwide uses for robotics, economic factors and projections. Most are industrial providers, but the publication also includes NASA and other renowned research elements that reach well beyond industrial applications. In the 2011 publication MRISAR was featured in an entire chapter. The publication picks one per year for special focus in a chapter and covers a multitude of ventures in the rest of the document.