"MERTZ" is an active-vision robot head mounted on a portable platform. It has two digital firewire cameras for eyes and a voice array microphone to capture what people say to it. Visually, "MERTZ" can detect skin, saturated color, motion, and faces. Its audio system consists of a phoneme recognizer and a speech synthesizer. Up close and personal, the robot has the innocent look of a small child. Aryananda wanted a face that was cute and friendly, not alien, because "MERTZ" is meant to interact with and learn from others. "MERTZ"'s seeming simplicity is echoed in the basic construction materials of its face: the faceplate is a placid light gray plastic; its eyes are spray-painted balls from a pet shop; and its lips are made from movable springs. Even "MERTZ"'s voice is childlike. Aryananda’s instinct is that people expect less intelligence if a robot seems like a child – and for now, "MERTZ"'s intelligence is very primitive.

Doctoral student Lijin Aryananda’s path to robotics began with an MIT undergraduate class in embodied intelligence. Something clicked, and then, as a member of CSAIL’s Humanoid Robotics Group, Aryananda developed a robot – or rather, a robot head – of her own. The Humanoid Robotics Group is part of the Living Breathing Robots initiative, led by CSAIL director Rodney Brooks.

Mechanical desing by Jeff Weber.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/lijin/mertz.html