# Topics > Robotics > Social robotics >  Blossom, social robot, Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship (HRC^2) Lab, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA

## Airicist

Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship (HRC^2) Lab

Home page - hrc2.io/projects/Blossom

guyhoffman.com/category/research/robots

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## Airicist

Blossom - a handcrafted social robot - soft inside and out

Published on Aug 22, 2017




> Project "Blossom" is a robot that is soft inside and out. It is built using traditional crafts like wool and wood. We wanted to bring back warm materials to home robotics, instead of more plastics, glass, and metal. 
> 
> You can customize Blossom by knitting new exteriors and attaching different crafted parts to make each robot unique. 
> 
> Blossom is currently used in research at Cornell University. We study new mechanical designs for social robots, including how to use soft materials and soft mechanisms in social robot design. 
> 
> This robot is also used as a platform to study how Machine Learning can be used to make a robot react to YouTube content. One of the aims is to help children on the Autism spectrum to develop social skills. Blossom is built using TensorFlow, Google's open-source Machine Learning framework.
> 
> "Blossom" is a collaboration between Cornell University's Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship Lab and Google Creative Technologies Singapore.

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## Airicist

Article "Blossom: A Handmade Approach to Social Robotics from Cornell and Google"

by Evan Ackerman
August 23, 2017

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