Simple, soft shapes are everywhere. In our home environment you can find pillows, blankets, balls, bottles, clothes, etc. Robots are often expensive and complex. But couldn’t they be thought of in a completely different way? How could social robots emerge from simple, soft shapes? As part of their final thesis at the School of Business FHNW, Nhi Tran Hoang Yen and Thang Hoang Vu from Ho Chi Minh City have answered this question posed by their supervisor Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel. They have submitted eleven proposals for novel robots. All are shown on informationsethik.net. The eleventh proposal is Rish (go here to the previous). Rish moves like a fish and looks similar to a fish. Thus, it fits well into the community of aquarium animals. Its main purpose is to clean the aquarium from waste and excrement. The authors write in their documentation: „It is recommended to equip a thin, stretchable, and robust ultimate sensor to either detecting the waste or reconfiguring the moving body shapes and tasks of Rish.“ Two books by Oliver Bendel on social robots – „300 Keywords Soziale Robotik“ and „Soziale Roboter“ – will be published in October 2021.

Fig.: Rish (image: Trần Hoàng Yến Nhi & Hoàng Vũ Thắng, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam)