I participated as a judge at the Pepper Programming Showcase 2020.
Today featured presentations by eight teams—selected from 850 schools nationwide—across three categories.
The three categories were the Elementary School Division, with the theme “Pepper: Useful in Everyday Life”; the Middle School Division, with the theme “Pepper: Solving Social Issues”; and the Open Division, which had a free-choice theme. I was in charge of the Open Division.

The Gold Prize in the Open Division was awarded to “Save the Higashi Junior High Students” by Kakegawa Municipal Higashi Junior High School. Students at Higashi Junior High, who spend their days in a school building with a complex structure resulting from repeated
expansions and renovations, currently face two problems.
The first is that they cannot find their teachers or get in touch with them during recess.
The second is that second-year students—whose classrooms are farthest from the library, located at one end of the building—have seen a 98% decrease in the number of books borrowed compared to their first year.
Therefore, this project was launched to ensure that Higashi Junior High students have their precious break time and to promote reading. They captured the audience’s attention with a
“Project X”-style presentation.
Pepper robots were deployed at six locations throughout the school to record where and when teachers passed by using facial recognition. Based on this information, the system notifies students of a teacher’s current location. Teachers on business trips can also send messages to students via Pepper.
Additionally, a mini-library was established in a location convenient for second-year students to borrow books, featuring bookshelves and a Pepper “library committee member.”Book lending was managed using QR codes attached to the books and student facial recognition.
A three-week pilot program involving all 538 students resulted in high praise from 88% of them. We received numerous positive comments,
such as “It’s become easier to get in touch with teachers” and “The library feels more accessible now.” Pepper also keeps track of the students’ birthdays and congratulates them on their special days. He’s already a full-fledged member of the school community.
Here’s a final message from the team, which won the Gold Award and secured a trip to Silicon Valley.
The next episode of “Project P,” broadcast by HGS (Higashi Junior High Broadcasting Station), will reportedly be brought to you from the United States. Congratulations!

The Silver Prize was awarded to “Super Nursery Teacher” from Aoshima Junior High School in Fujieda City.
The project aims to simultaneously address the anxiety felt by a young woman who sends her child to daycare—specifically, her worry that she “doesn’t know what’s going on at the center”—and the social issues of overworked childcare workers and a shortage of staff. The project focuses on
Pepper’s feature as an “information terminal capable of communicating like a human.”Photos taken by the
preschoolers themselves are automatically sent to parents via facial recognition.
The system also includes security features: if it detects an intruder, an alarm sounds, and it automatically takes a photo of the intruder and sends it via email.
Furthermore, it comes preloaded with several apps designed for children to play with.
The developed system underwent three rounds of testing.
The first phase involved letting local children try it out at a cultural festival. There, they identified and corrected all program issues.
The second phase took place at an actual daycare center. When they gathered feedback from the children, parents, and staff, some even expressed a desire to see it implemented permanently.
The third phase took place at a nursing home. Surprisingly, the team is already looking beyond daycare centers and toward implementation in nursing homes as well. Here, too, the system was tested for one month at a nursing home, and they received feedback expressing hope for a full-scale rollout. What they
value most is bringing smiles to everyone’s faces and providing peace of mind. It was clear that their hope is to help deepen the bond between children and their parents.

The Bronze Prize was awarded to “Pepper Saves My Great-Grandfather” from Gifu Municipal Aoyama Junior High School.
The students’ great-grandmother, who lives in a senior care facility, faces issues such as a lack of exercise, cognitive decline, and nighttime wandering. At the same time, the facility is struggling with a shortage of care workers.
How can they help their great-grandmother enjoy her time there?How can we improve the state of care in an aging society? This project attempts to address that using Pepper.
A care-support robot that combines both “mobility” and “cuteness”—that is their proposal.
They equipped Pepper with four “innovative features.”
First is “healthcare.”They developed a feature that allows residents to exercise alongside Pepper. Residents hold a tool equipped with a micro:bit, which prompts them to perform the same movements as Pepper. The robot recognizes human movements—such as the angle of the hand—and gives voice prompts like “Raise your hand higher.”
Next is “Nighttime Monitoring.” If a resident tries to leave the facility in the middle of the night, Pepper detects it and sends a notification to the care staff.One challenge was implementing a password feature to prevent residents from tampering with the system.
Other features include a “warmth notification” function that alerts families living far away to the resident’s status, as well as a “cognitive ability test” to assess cognitive function. They gave an easy-to-understand presentation using a skit in which one cast member played the role of a
great-grandmother.
The response was excellent, not only from the “great-grandmother” but also from the care staff.“We have to handle both monitoring residents who wander and administrative tasks, but it looks like we’ll be able to focus solely on the administrative work, which is a big help.” “It seems like this will help the residents stay healthy and keep them smiling.”

I was surprised to see that three out of the eight teams addressed caregiving issues this time.It really shows how relevant and pressing caregiving issues are,
even for elementary and middle school students. All three teams incorporated a nighttime wandering monitoring feature that linked the micro:bit and Pepper. There were also other innovative ideas, such as adjusting Pepper’s voice pitch and speed to make it easier for people with age-related hearing loss to hear, as well as features to manage room temperature.

At the awards ceremony attended by all divisions, I was surprised by Gifu City’s strong performance.
They achieved the remarkable feat of winning gold medals in both the elementary school and middle school divisions, as well as a bronze medal in the open division.
Gifu Elementary School in Gifu City, which won the gold medal in the elementary school division, presented a project titled “Pepper: Solving Child-Rearing Problems.”Deeply troubled by news reports that the number of
child abuse counseling cases had increased 100-fold compared to 30 years ago, the students developed a Pepper robot designed to support parenting. Children can enjoy origami and picture books together with Pepper.Even the length of the videos was carefully designed to keep young children engaged.
When the project was tested during an open house—where parents and community members were invited to use it—it reportedly received positive feedback.
The gold prize in the junior high school division went to Gifu City Gifu Central Junior High School for “Pepper Working as a Convenience Store Robot Clerk.”The goal was to prevent confusion caused by the introduction of the reduced
consumption tax rate and to address issues such as staff shortages at convenience stores and labor problems resulting from 24-hour operations. Therefore, they proposed introducing Pepper, which works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Pepper uses a tablet to display product locations and assist customers; it also scans QR codes to indicate the tax rate and functions as a self-checkout system.It also makes announcements in English, enabling it to assist foreign customers. When a
Lawson store manager reviewed the project, they reportedly offered positive feedback, noting that it “could be used to train international student part-time workers,” “would help with security during late-night hours,” “would help prevent tax evasion in the eat-in area,” and “is expected to increase customer traffic through Pepper.” It seems these students may very well make the automation of convenience stores a reality.

Identify challenges in everyday life. Research the social context and interview those directly involved to pinpoint specific issues. Come up with creative ideas to solve them. Divide roles within the team and develop the solution. Implement it in the field and test it. Refine the solution based on feedback.I was
deeply impressed by how
every team tackled each stage of the process with such tenacity and attention to detail. The presentations were diverse and fascinating—ranging from TV-style presentations to skits. It’s heartening to see elementary and middle school students who, rather than simply complaining about the challenges
around them, know how to solve them themselves and have the power to put those solutions into action.
The desire to “make the people around them smile” was a common thread running through every presentation.
I truly hope they will build a future society brimming with smiles with their own hands. It was a day that left me feeling that way.

For those who unfortunately did not win an award, simply reaching this final round is a wonderful achievement in itself. Once
again, congratulations to everyone, and thank you for all your hard work.