Panda PlusMe was the first working prototype of Transitional Wearable Companions (TWC); they are a novel concept of interactive devices, which stand between standard interactive toys (simple to use, quite interesting, but limited as available features), and standard robotics (very rich and interesting, but generally complex to use). PlusMe fills then a technological gap. Several therapists who could evaluate PlusMe said they would buy it, if available on the market.

Videos about a typical therapy session with ASD children can be found here.

Currently, we are developing new AI-based tools, to analyse the video of the experimental sessions, so to characterise the social engagement between child and therapist, mediated by PlusMe.

During the project, the toy was partially engineered, and produced in a small scale production (25 samples). The new devices are now delivered to some institutes treating neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. Autism, Language Disorders, Rett syndrome), which wanted to test them.