As part of a collaboration with colleagues from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University in India, researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a hand-shaped ‘social robot’ named Pepe.

Mounted on a wall above a handwashing station, Pepe offers handwashing tips and advice for pupils ranging between five and ten years old.

A video screen acted as a ‘mouth’ for researchers, who teleoperated the robot to speak to pupils and let the kids know about a poster outlining handwashing techniques located next to the station.

Since the robot’s launch at a school in Kerala, Pepe has helped pupils to wash their hands more effectively – boosting their rates of handwashing by around 40%, researchers said.

Additionally, on average pupils also spent twice as long washing their hands since the inclusion of Pepe while more than 95% were able to identify the appropriate time to wash their hands, such as after visiting the bathroom or before eating.

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Dr Amol Deshmukh, from the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, explained: “We chose this particular primary school for our research because the pupils are drawn from scheduled castes and tribes, a segment of the Indian population which is most affected by poor sanitation and hygiene.

“We were delighted by the success of Pepe’s visit to this primary school. None of the children had ever interacted with anything like a robot before, but they were excited to interact with this relatively simple machine, which clearly had a positive effect on their efforts to keep their hands clean.”

According to figures from WaterAid India and the World Health Organisations (WHO), diarrhoea and respiratory infections cause the deaths of nearly 1,300 young children each day globally – with more than 300 of those in India alone. Hand washing is one of the most effective ways of combating the problem.

Using technology to encourage children to employ basic hygiene methods could help save lives not only in India but around the world. This particular project is the second ‘social robot’ initiative conducted by the two academic institutions. Last year, they deployed a four-wheeled robot to assist residents of Ayyampathy to carry water from wells to their homes.

Dr Deshmukh added: “Social robots could potentially create a positive impact in their lives, but they have rarely been tested with people from rural backgrounds in developing countries. This research helps in identifying a valuable and viable use case for social robots in rural populations in developing countries.”

Long-term, researchers hope to focus on developing autonomous tech capabilities for the social robot so it can better-interact with children without any input from humans. Dr Deshmukh said they also hope to begin “wide-scale deployments” in rural schools to continue measuring the effectiveness of social robots.