###### Abstract  
Remote, online learning provides opportunities for flexible, accessible, and personalised education, regardless of geographical boundaries. This study mode also promises to democraise education, making it more adaptable to individual learning styles. However, transitioning to this digital paradigm also brings challenges, including issues related to students' mental health and motivation and communication barriers. Integrating social robots into this evolving educational landscape presents an effective approach to enhancing student support and engagement. In this article, we focus on the potential of social robots in higher education, identifying a significant gap in the educational technology landscape that could be filled by open-source learning robots tailored to university students' needs. To bridge this gap, we introduce the Robotic Study Companion (RSC), a customisable, open-source social robot developed with cost-effective off-the-shelf parts. Designed to provide an interactive and multimodal learning experience, the RSC aims to enhance student engagement and success in their studies. This paper documents the development of the RSC, from establishing literature-based requirements to detailing the design process and build instructions. As an open development platform, the RSC offers a solution to current educational challenges and lays the groundwork for personalised, interactive, and affordable AI-enabled robotic companions. Robotic Study Companion; open source; social robot; natural language processing; university students; higher education; human-robot interaction; human-AI interaction +
Footnote †: journal: Medical  
and lecture-based learning necessitates the use of efficient and self-motivating learning strategies for academic success [20]. Studies with social robots in education predominantly utilise pre-existing robots [26], neglecting the exploration of technical features required explicitly for university students [27]. Additionally, multiple factors impede the integration of social robots into higher education, such as stock limitations due to market disruptions, privacy concerns, limited customisability, and few affordable options [26; 28]. One approach to addressing these issues is to develop open-source hardware (OSHW) solutions. According to [29], OSHW projects can enhance teaching methods, foster creativity and engagement, support distance learning, and reduce costs while increasing transparency in design and manufacturing. They also provide broader applicability because they incorporate publicly modifiable solutions for individual needs [30]. Robotic companions are described as consistently helpful, interactive social robots designed to assist human users over extended periods [31]. Thus, these robots have the potential to provide educational support while offering a reassuring physical presence to students [18], especially during isolated study sessions. Robotic companions specialising in study support could aid students in reflecting on and monitoring their progress [32; 33], providing feedback through insights into learning strategies and exam preparation [27; 33]. They can also enable educators to effectively track student progress, identify areas requiring focus, and support struggling students [34; 35]. This paper presents the open-source Robotic Study Companion (RSC), a physical desktop social robot designed for human-AI interaction with learners in higher education (Figure 1). Using cost-effective off-the-shelf components, university students can build and customise their own RSC, enabling them to adapt it to their learning styles. We summarise the contributions of our paper as follows:  
* Based on the literature (Section 2), we developed requirements (Section 2.4) for an RSC tailored to the needs of university students and highlight the main design considerations based on the needs of students and educators. * We designed and implemented the hardware and software for an RSC with multimodal human-robot interaction (Section 3).