what did we do

We went on a walk with the members of the Buurtcampus-oost. They host these walks weekly and this on 28 may was their anniversary edition so we did a different route than usual. These walks were originally hosted by the AUAS (HvA). There were elderly people that went on these walks. They first gather at the OBA at linnaeusstraat, and normally they go on a walk around the neighborhood. However, since this was the anniversary edition, we had a different route and activity. We still went on a walk, however we first went with the bus to Amsterdam north, and then we walked to the Landmarkt. This is a market that also has a restaurant, and we had a drink there. We had plenty of time to get to know the elderly people that go on these walks and the students that do projects with these people. We did not want to make these people feel used, so we did not directly ask them questions about our project. However, we did talk and observe them.

The findings

While walking to the bus stop, we already saw that these people are happy to move and want to get active. That's why they want to go on these walks together because it is a social way to move. While talking to some of them, it seemed like they want to have something extra that helps them get active. When talking to one of the students, we were talking about our projects, and then the student mentioned to us that they were making a closet with games in it. These games vary from active to board games. Since there were active games there such as ping pong, we asked the student if they would think our project would fit next to the closet as an extra tool. They sounded very excited and told us it would be lovely since it is a unique way to move. Since these elderly people really liked to be social and pepper is a social assertive robot.

These elderly people also seemed very pleased with the latest technology and are not scared of it. We found out they are using all kinds of new and niche technologies, such as apple watches. They also have grandchildren that talk about AI, and they found it very interesting and want to learn more about, however they are scared that it will make people lazy, and some jobs will cease to exist.

conclusion

We are glad to see that are projects helps the walking group of the buurtcampus oost. We hope that we can but fitbot next to the closet with all the games and that some of them use it when they are waiting on other people to arrive. These people really seemed to be wanting to get more active but not really to know how to do it, and we are glad to assist them with the use of fitbot.