Jérôme's robot who cares

Jérôme's idea is to build a "robot with personality", a kindly creature that people could warm to and trust, not some cold, soulless machine. He wanted to give a touch of magic to his creation, which he calls Miroki. Because Jérôme hasn't forgotten his childhood dreams.

"When I was 10," he recalls, "I asked my father to help me put a motor into a humanoid robot made of Lego. I spend hours on it. I was sure that it could be done. Now, I realise that it's a lot harder than I thought. But it's not impossible.

"I've always loved cartoons. I still watch a lot. And that gave me a lot of the inspiration for Miroki."

‍Miroki's world

Jérôme worked with graphic artists to design Miroki, a long-eared space fox. He went so far as to invent a whole life for him, with his own tribe, the Mirokaï, who live on the planet Miroko. Miroki even has a girlfriend. She's called Miroka.

 Miroki is about the size of a boy of 8. He's 1.26 metres tall and weighs 28 kilograms. Unlike a boy, though, he has four cameras and four microphones built into him. He moves around gracefully, at walking speed, but not on feet. He's perched on a ball. And he can work solidly for 8 hours before his battery needs charged up.

‍Miroki's feelings

Miroki's face is an image projected onto the inside of the visor of his helmet. Unlike a typical robot, his face changes expression all the time, just like ours, depending on what people say to us. He can show surprise and sadness, he can smile and he really interacts with the person speaking to him. 

Miroki works with little electronic devices that his designers call "runes". If you press on a rune, Miroki will come to help you. If you put a rune on, say, a tray, Miroki will come and take the tray back to the kitchen. Jérôme hopes to sell hundreds of Mirokis within just a couple of years - and many thousands more after that!