NWO Open Mind Grant for drones for children with autism

Dr. A. Jamshidnejad has been awarded a NWO Open Mind Grant for the project "Drones interacting with children with autism via dance-movement therapy". In this project affordable, personalized, easy-to-use drones for children with autism will be created. These drones will engage children in dance movement therapy. 

“This grant will allow me to discover the various aspects of this novel research idea and to further extend my research in the field of robotics in health care and education, which is one of my main research interests”, says Anahita Jamshidnejad.

NWO Open Mind Grants are awarded to ideas that are out- of-the-box and can improve the world by contributing to sustainable solutions for global societal challenges. For this research, Anahita Jamshidnejad will collaborate with Dr. Ruth Van der Hallen from the Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The project will take 12 months, 9 months in Delft where the drone will be designed and 3 months in Rotterdam where data will be collected using the drone during dance-movement therapy with children.

More information and a video about the research can be found here.