July 10, 2018

Sharing our Findings from the Social Robot Design Challenge

Blog post written by Christina Nelson & Emma Rose

Earlier this year we hosted the Social Robot Design Challenge at UW to better understand how teens might design a social robot to address stress. During Spring quarter, we spent time analyzing the resulting designs. The results of this analysis will help us learn about the features teens want when thinking about a social robot that would live in their own high school.

We created a short video to share with the schools that took part in the Design Challenge.

What we’ve learned so far

Each of the student teams designed their own social robot prototypes in really different ways to meet the diverse needs of students attending their own high schools. While each of the robots the students designed varied in color, shape, and size, the students implemented several common features including gender, gift giving, and voice.

Gender

Our team noticed a common theme of gender appearing in the pronouns the teens used to describe their social robot prototypes. Most of the teams commonly referred to their robot using gender neutral pronouns like “it.” However, students at Ballard High School referred to their puppy-looking social robot prototype using the gendered pronoun “she.” Looking deeper into the role that gender plays in human robot interaction is important as we move forward with our own design.

Helping and gift giving

Helping and gift giving was another common feature that all of the students implemented in their own designs. The designs showed that teens expect robots to help them and give them things in ways that we classified as active, passive, and material ways.

Examples of active giving classified behaviors that were designed for the robot to show affection to the user or to make the user laugh. For example, students at Henry Foss High School designed their social robot prototype Boom-Boom with slinky arms that could shake the hands of stressed teens, while other robots including Roosevelt High School’s Joaquin Bartholomew III featured the ability to hug the user.

Passive giving categorized actions that would calm the user down by giving them something in a passive way. This included incorporating soothing lighting and showing calming visuals. Robots including Nathan Hale’s Comfort Zone even featured the ability to play music to help teens destress. These features aimed to calm the user by creating a comforting environment.

In addition to active and passive ways of giving, the social robot prototypes designed by the teens gave tangible gifts to the user as well. For example, the designs created by Oakland High School and Henry Foss High School were created to give teens food and beverages. We came to recognize that giving food to the user was not just a form of comfort, but also a response to addressing food scarcity concerns that exist in these schools.

Voice

Voice also played a role in the way the students envisioned their social robots interacting with stressed teens. For example, students at Roosevelt High School considered the accent that their robot Joaquin Bartholomew III would have when speaking to teens. Students at the Science and Math Institute (SAMI) also considered the role of voice when designing their robot Carlbot, allowing Carlbot’s voice to be customizable and mimic the voices of students’ favorite celebrities.

A team effort

The UW Tacoma team (pictured below) worked hard and learned a lot this quarter! Data analysis is challenging and lead to many insights. We look forward to see what’s up next.

Left to right: Fadumo Abdirahman, Leah Ruisenor, Christina Nelson, Jasvir Dosanjh, Emma Rose, Nicole Young Alvarez, and Soobin Kim (Not pictured: Alex Merk)

Moving forward—There’s more to come

Our team is still so impressed by the designs the students created at the showcase. While the academic year has come to an end for us, our team is on track to pilot a robot in a school by 2020.

We can’t wait to share the next steps in our journey with you!