Emotion Explorers & Zen: AI System and Voice Assistant for Exploring Emotions and Cultivating Compassion

Emotion Explorers is an AI system that assists 6-11-year-old children to understand emotions, aims to have a long-lasting impact on children's emotional behaviors, and creates a compassionate, connected, safe environment. The system can be integrated into smart devices, such as bracelets and plushies for children, and mobile applications for parents and teachers. Emotion Explorers interacts with children through a digital voice assistant named Zen, facilitating children's emotional awareness and emotional behaviors through dialogues about emotions. It detects child users' emotions through verbal content and heartbeat rates and provides emotional support accordingly. It helps children verbalize their feelings, normalize emotional communication, understand others' feelings, and show kindness to create a compassionate environment. In addition, Emotion Explorers provides adults with analyses of the emotional status of children. This way, adults are aware of children's mental status and can provide better emotional support. The goal is to develop children's emotional awareness, communication of emotions, and kind behaviors through a longitudinal and sustainable approach.