October 25, 2017
The Birth of EMAR, the Little Robot that Could–Help Teens
What happens when a health and stress researcher and a human centered design professor join forces? EMAR. Well, not exactly. Dr. Elin Björling and Dr. Emma Rose were discussing stress in teenagers and ways to gauge the data, and through that conversation the idea of a social robot for teens sprouted. They knew that robots are likely an interactive way to gather data from teenagers. If you were a teenager in the age of technology that we live in, would you rather interact with a person or a robot regarding your stress levels? Would interacting with a robot be more engaging than entering data into a mobile phone or tablet time and time again?
Now that they knew how they wanted to gather data from teenagers, it was just a matter of designing and developing the robot. There was one person they both knew who would fit perfectly with their project: Human Centered Design & Engineering Senior Lecturer Andy Davidson. Emma and Andy had previously collaborated on a project teaching User Experience to high school students. Andy has expertise in physical computing, prototyping, and working with teens. Once he was on board with the project, it seemed as though pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. Davidson enlisted the help of graduate student Kristine Kohlhepp to help design the robot.
But what would teens want?
It’d be nice if things in life happened that way; you have an idea and begin to brainstorm, then everything comes together quickly and the project idea is finalized. However, building a robot from scratch using human-centered design means directly engaging teens in the design process, asking them to help us understand how they imagine a robot looking and acting.
Before any work for the EMAR prototype began, we wanted to learn what the teens thought and felt about the appearance, movement, voice, and other functionality aspects of existing robots. Would EMAR be a lovable fluffy robot or would it resemble a metal humanoid? That seemed to be one of the biggest design questions. How do you answer this question using human centered design? You ask the teens. Emma, Elin and Kristine created three diverse design sessions with teens, asking them to respond to photos of existing robots and to draw their own. The teens were also asked to tell a story of a robot living in their high school. From these design sessions, the research team quickly learned that teens were frightened of humanoid looking robots and seemed to love simple, boxy designs. They even wrote about this data in a paper “Designing for Engagement: Using Participatory Design to Develop a Social Robot to Measure Teen Stress.”. With the design question identified, they were able to move on to the next step: choosing hardware and an operating system. After all of the fantastic research and list of pros and cons for each operating systems were compiled, Kristine was able to narrow it down to the operating system that would become EMAR’s heart: Arduino. With this decision and some more research, we ordered important new parts, such as the eyes and the touch screen that would be placed on EMAR’s body.
EMAR comes to life
Over a matter of four weeks, EMAR started coming to life. Thanks to Kristine’s tenaciousness and resourcefulness, EMAR’s body consisted of a headphone box for the body, and a coffee box for the head, both were covered with black construction paper. She also added two wheels from an unused ab-wheel to convey mobility. There were some minor setbacks when it came to programming EMAR, such as how to decide on a voice for EMAR. Eventually, EMAR version 1 (V1) was complete (add photo here). Once it was complete, EMAR V1 visited teens so that the research team could assess how teens felt about interacting with V1.
The team was surprised at how many teens liked EMAR and thought it was “cute.” They seemed to enjoy interacting with it even though it was such a simple prototype. So, with feedback from teens, the team went on to iterate on the design and began development of V2. Kristine decided V2 should look a bit more like a robot, have a bigger touchscreen, but still keep that cute, boxy look that teens seem to like. V2 also was given more dynamic eyes as the team knew they wanted to begin playing with V2’s expressions to see how teens would respond. See the differences between V1 and V2 in the following:
EMAR V1
Components:
- 2 Neopixel Rings (eyes)
- 2.8 in capacitive touchscreen
- Mp3 player (voice)
Body:
- Reused boxes from household items
- Filled with mac and cheese
Functionality:
- One intro/question/response
- Eyes blink and change color to indicate expression
EMAR V2
Components:
- 2 Neopixel matrices (eyes)
- 7 in tft touchscreen, attached via RA8875 driver board
- Mp3 player (same as V1)
Body:
- Lasercut from birch wood
- Removable back panels to allow for component access
Functionality:
- Randomly displays one of three intros, questions and closing statements
- Eyes animated with five expressions (neutral, blink, happy, sad, looking down)
At the start of Fall 2016, Project EMAR expanded to include a Directed Research Group (DRG) that included undergraduate and graduate students and faculty from UW Seattle and UW Tacoma. This was the first time a DRG was held across two campuses. Andy, Emma, and Elin led this group to further iterate on EMAR and conduct field studies in Seattle schools to better understand how teens interacted with V2. And from here, our team blog begins, documenting the work we’re doing with teens and robots and Project EMAR’s goal of designing a social robot for teens.
