RESUMEN
We explore an alternative approach to the design of robots that deviates from the common envisionment of having one unified agent. What if robots are depicted as an agentic ensemble where agency is distributed over different components? In the project presented here, we investigate the potential contributions of this approach to creating entertaining and joyful human-robot interaction (HRI), which also remains comprehensible to human observers. We built a service robot-which takes care of plants as a Plant-Watering Robot (PWR)-that appears as a small ship controlled by a robotic captain accompanied by kinetic elements. The goal of this narrative design, which utilizes a distributed agency approach, is to make the robot entertaining to watch and foster its acceptance. We discuss the robot's design rationale and present observations from an exploratory study in two contrastive settings, on a university campus and in a care home for people with dementia, using a qualitative video-based approach for analysis. Our observations indicate that such a design has potential regarding the attraction, acceptance, and joyfulness it can evoke. We discuss aspects of this design approach regarding the field of elderly care, limitations of our study, and identify potential fields of use and further scopes for studies.
RESUMEN
Care of ageing adults has become a dominant field of application for assistive robot technologies, promising support for ageing adults residing in care homes and staff, in dealing with practical routine tasks and providing social and emotional relieve. A time consuming and human intensive necessity is the maintenance of high hygiene quality in care homes. Robotic vacuum cleaners have been proven effective for doing the job elsewhere, but-in the context of care homes-are counterproductive for residents' well-being and do not get accepted. This is because people with dementia manifest their agency in more implicit and emotional ways, while making sense of the world around them. Starting from these premises, we explored how a zoomorphic designed vacuum cleaner could better accommodate the sensemaking of people with dementia. Our design reconceptualises robotic vacuum cleaners as a cat-like robot, referring to a playful behaviour and appearance to communicate a non-threatening and familiar role model. Data from an observational study shows that residents responded positively to our prototype, as most of them engaged playfully with it as if it was a pet or a cat-like toy, for example luring it with gestures. Some residents simply ignored the robot, indicating that it was not perceived as frightening or annoying. The level of activity influenced reactions; residents ignored our prototype if busy with other occupations, which proves that it did not cause significant disturbance. We further report results from focus group sessions with formal and informal caregivers who discussed a video prototype of our robot. Caregivers encouraged us to enhance the animal like characteristics (in behaviour and materiality) even further to result in richer interactions and provoke haptic pleasure but also pointed out that residents should not mistake the robot for a real cat.
RESUMEN
This paper investigates the simplification of programming for non-technical university students. Typical simplification strategies are outlined, and according to our findings CT courses for non-technical students typically address learners from different faculties, providing generic and basic knowledge, not specifically related to their major. In this study, we propose instead a hermeneutic approach to simplify programming, in which we aim at clarifying the problem-solving aspect of programming, addressing computational problems that are specific to their studies and leveraging on learners' preunderstanding of the digital media they have experienced as users. The practical counterpart of our theoretical approach is a minimalistic Python multimedia library, called Medialib, that we designed to enable university students with a non-technical profile to create visual media and games with short and readable code. We discuss the use of Medialib in two empirical case studies: a collaboration with the university of Kyushu in Fukuoka, Japan, and a coding module for Media Studies students at the University of Southern Denmark. Furthermore, we use Notional Machines to attempt a comparison of the simplicity of learning tools for programming, and to ground our claim that Medialib is "simpler" for learners than other popular approaches. The main contribution is a hermeneutic approach to the simplification of programming for specific contexts that combines the hermeneutic spiral and notional machines. The approach is supported by a tool, the Medialib library; the two case studies provide examples of how the approach and tool can be deployed in beginners in CT courses.
RESUMEN
The SMOOTH-robot is a mobile robot that-due to its modularity-combines a relatively low price with the possibility to be used for a large variety of tasks in a wide range of domains. In this article, we demonstrate the potential of the SMOOTH-robot through three use cases, two of which were performed in elderly care homes. The robot is designed so that it can either make itself ready or be quickly changed by staff to perform different tasks. We carefully considered important design parameters such as the appearance, intended and unintended interactions with users, and the technical complexity, in order to achieve high acceptability and a sufficient degree of utilization of the robot. Three demonstrated use cases indicate that such a robot could contribute to an improved work environment, having the potential to free resources of care staff which could be allocated to actual care-giving tasks. Moreover, the SMOOTH-robot can be used in many other domains, as we will also exemplify in this article.