ROBOTICS WITH FACIAL HUMAN EMOTIONS AND TUN HASMAH

My friends and me were having tea with Tun Dr Siti Hasmah at the Tun Mahathir's Office Menara Petronas yesterday.Datin Mardhiah suggested we meet Hasmah to present to her the coffeee table book "Citra Gemilang""It was around 1140 in the morning.We were actually a bit late but Hasmah greeted us warmly and enthusiatically. We delivered our YDP PUSPANITA Yg Bhg Puan Sri Wan Noorlina''s salam who were not able to attend. Tun Hasmah went through the Coffee Table Book of PUSPANITA page by page asking questions and giving comments at the same time.At the same time she rendered memories of he rself, Tun Mahathir and family as well as friends.We laughed in response to the humourous anecdotes. What a charming and experienced former First Lady. She is soft and gentle but at the same time assertive and strongly certain about her roles , values and goals.As an educationist she made several interesting remarks and as an educationist i responded in like manner.There were several topics aired but i now wish to share with you on the topic about robots. Tun Hasmah reflected on her visits to Korea and Japan and how she was impressed by the study of robots over there mentioning how our students managed to excel excellently in such study.This is good motivation for the rest in Malaysia right? We really laughed over how she described the robots which she said a small one would cost RM4000; It was a witty rendition of what the cute little robots can do and the further implications in our daily lives.At one point we laughed quite endlessly because according to her the cute little robots will "lie down"(sleep) if they are not perked to do work and follow instructions. What striked my imagination is how robots can be used to study human development as in child study of which i am interested. I remembered how Hideki Kozima, Cocoro Nakagawa and Hiroyuki Yano from the National Insitute of Information and Communication Technology Kyoto Japan has built child like humanoid ,infanoid and a small creature like robot Keepon to investigate interpersonal communication.It was very interesting to observe how children actually interact with robots.Children observed what stimuli the robots perceived and how robots performed in response.The experiments tested models of social intelligence,and provided the needs for psychological investigations with implications for pedagogy and child studies. Well here is the potential for robotics in developmental psychology right?We must remember we can built robots with facial human emotions.Going further and using our imagination can we visualize how these robots can be designed and developed to assist us at home? How about a robot to man the kitchen and do household chores? And of course a fuller potential at the hospitals. Serious about this possibility? Or conservatively a No No? No matter what, Tun Hasmah certainly hoped that the field of robotics in Malaysia can advance benchmarking with the Japanese achievement .I concur with this opinion positively. In my heart with efforts, motivation, knowledge and support Malaysia Boleh!!! It was nearly 2pm when we left Petronas feeling very happy and fulfilled.


Hope you enjoy the photo inserted above of me and my PUSPANITA friends with Tun Dr Siti Hasmah