1st mall robot in country, Chennai kids’ ‘Make in India’ wonder

The next time you visit Express Avenue Mall and want information on the best deals and offers available, head to the central atrium. Giving you a warm welcome, EA BOT, the first mall robot in the country, will also help you locate stores and give live updates on them. 

Created by ‘Kidobotikz’, the interactive EA BOT, which was launched in the city on Saturday, is an effort by a group of 10 members from the Chennai community of the online platform. 

Sneha Priya, CEO and co-founder, Kidobotikz, says that the robot is the result of efforts by school children along with others. She adds, “All were under 27 years and the school children too pitched in with many of the features of the robot. It is an open source platform, where the code is available for the community to work on, and constantly develop it. The kids have contributed to the speech, the interface of scrolls about offers, etc.”

The five-foot tall robot, equipped with a 22-inch screen monitor, has features like mall guide, navigation guidance, live updates and human interactions. The EA BOT will be seen greeting visitors saying, ‘Hi I am EA BOT. Welcome to Express Avenue, how can I help you.’ Sneha adds that the kids have already given updates to upgrade the robot. “We will soon be implementing it and the Bot can be upgraded with different innovations. We think that the retail space is the most ideal for such a robot and hence approached Express Avenue Mall who were open to it,” she noted.

Kidobotikz is more than four years old and has more than 2,000 people accessing it to acquire electronic, mechanical and programming skills that are important for any technology.