Tag: robotics

Posted on

Exploring Children’s Interaction with Robotic Installations: Reflections on Placement with Makers of Imaginary Worlds

post by Victor Ngo (2022 cohort)

My placement ran from July to September 2023, with Makers of Imaginary Worlds (MOIW), and involved planning and running a two-part study that would help inform my PhD research on ‘Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Live Creative Installations’. More specifically, how children interact and form relationships with the robotic installation, how children understand and shape their interaction in this context, what meaning children attribute to the robot and their interaction, how curious children are during the interaction and what motivates their curiosity.

NED (The Never-Ending Dancer)

To add some background to my placement partner, MOIW are a Nottingham-based art company, who aim to create interactive and sensory experiences where children can play, engage and explore. MOIW’s first live robotics project, Thingamabobas, is aimed at younger audiences and involves the use of a computer vision-equipped robot arm, called NED (The Never-Ending Dancer), which can detect audience members and interact with them autonomously. This installation also includes a series of mechanical circus-like creations that are designed to enable children to interact with them as imaginative, dynamic sculptures that provide novel, enjoyable, and empowering experiences.

Unlike social robots, industrial robot arms typically have a functional design, void of humanoid features or facial expressions. MOIW aims to transform the industrial robot arm into a playful kinetic sculpture that defies expectations, offering an inventive interpretation. By introducing variables such as costume design, musical accompaniment, and contextual storytelling, the artists aim to redefine the perception of the robotic arm. Demonstrating how fiction can facilitate a willing suspension of disbelief among audiences, allowing viewers to trust and immerse themselves in reimagining a new reality.

The Study:

The first half of the study, part 1, was completed at the National Festival of Making, Blackburn, with a tremendous number of people attending and in general a great event! This half of the study explored the audience’s understanding of the initial robotic system, with no changes to the system’s capabilities or functionality. This allowed for a base understanding of its performance, capabilities, and limitations in the wild for a researcher new to the system, this proved extremely useful and provided me with the knowledge necessary to complete part 2. The second half of the study, part 2, was completed at the Mansfield Museum, Mansfield, exploring the same audience understanding, however, the system was altered to allow for 360-degree motion around the robot’s base as well as a different method of detecting the audience, moving to body pose detection from facial recognition. Although a direct comparison between the two studies is not possible, insights into audience responsiveness, engagement, and enjoyment are all possible and valuable to the discussion, and future development of this system or similar systems.

Reflections:

Over the course of three months, this placement has provided me with the opportunity to develop key interpersonal and professional skills, as well as improve my technical aptitude.

My initial discussions with MOIW for the placement were straight away met with enthusiasm and sometimes whimsical imagination from Roma Patel and Rachel Ramchurn, the artists of MOIW. Despite MOIW being a relatively small company, I was fortunate enough to learn the ins and outs of art installation production and how artists like Roma and Rachel turn ideas and imagination into professional productions, and how they deal with issues, changes and unexpected setbacks. Shadowing them allowed me to observe how they manage large-scale projects and interact with professional organisations. This has enabled me to further develop and improve my own understanding of professional engagement and project management.

Throughout all stages of the placement, the artists from MOIW frequently discussed possible alterations and upgrades with me to improve the interaction capabilities of the robot. Here I was able to apply and improve my technical experience, developing solutions to enhance the robot’s interaction capabilities or increase the system’s audience detection accuracy and reliability. Despite the technical success of some of the solutions developed, it is important to highlight that not all of the artist’s ideas were technically feasible or within the scope of the project. Communicating this effectively and managing the artist’s expectations was key to ensuring that both the robot was functional and ready for the study, and the professional relationship with MOIW was maintained, without either party being let down or led to believe the system was any greater or less than what was agreed on.

During the study, I was not only the lead researcher on site but also a range of other roles that sometimes required me to step out of my comfort zone. These included in no particular order of social or imaginative intensity; Thingamabobas Wrangler, Storyteller, Imagination Guide, The Researcher from Nottingham University, Technical Support.

As part 1 of the study at the National Festival of Making was a two-day event over the weekend during the height of the UK summer holiday, I was left with little choice but to quickly adapt to these new roles or suffer being swarmed by the thousands of curious and enthusiastic visitors that attended the event. To my surprise, and with a little help from Roma and Rachel, I was able to help children and adults alike be transported into the whimsical world of the Thingamabobas, for about 20 minutes at a time.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and opportunity to work with MOIW to not only develop an art installation, but to also help run it was a great privilege. The skills I have learned and applied in both professional engagements as well as in the wild will be beneficial to my PhD research and to myself as an individual.

 

Posted on

Just write it!

Reflection on my first paper writing experience
post by Natalie Leesakul (2018 cohort)

Citation: Urquhart, L., Reedman-Flint, D. and Leesakul, N. (2019), “Responsible domestic robotics: exploring ethical implications of robots in the home”, Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 246-272. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-12-2018-0096

As I was wrapping up my first study and starting to draft the paper, I thought this might be a good time to write a reflection piece on my first paper writing experience. Writing a paper can feel a bit daunting. There are always so many ideas to cover and it is so easy to get consumed by the findings and the need to make the paper perfect – and that is where I’m usually stuck at. So, I have to often remind myself that writing a paper is a journey on its own and it is going to take several drafts and many revisions before arriving at the final document, but even that is not the end!

When I was in my first year, my supervisor, Dr Lachlan Urquhart, invited me to join in on a paper that he was working with another Horizon student, Dominic Reedman-Flint, for ETHICOMP 2018 conference in Sopot, Poland. The motivation of the paper was to introduce empirical observation and conceptual analysis to present how responsible robotics should be built and what people think of life with robots. As the paper focused on exploring challenges and requirements for designing responsible domestic robots, it was very much aligned with my interest in robotics and the law, so I got on board.  Following the submission to the conference, we were invited to submit the paper to Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, and the paper was accepted and published in May 2019. Although it has been over a year since the conference, I still remember the feeling when I gave a presentation at a conference for the first time and the excitement when we found out that the paper was finally in the pipeline for publishing.

For paper preparation, we were working remotely prior to the conference – Lachlan was the lead on this paper while Dom looked at the exploratory study and my responsibility was to support and fill the gaps in some parts of literature review, data analysis and copy editing. We collaborated via email and used Dropbox to keep track of different paper versions and editing (the raw survey data was not stored on here). Through collaboration, the paper started to develop from a rough outline of the paper format to the final draft ready for submission.  Unfortunately, neither Lachlan nor Dom was able to attend the conference. Although it was quite nerve-racking when I found out I would be going to the conference and presenting the paper, this experience really set a good start for my PhD (I’ll save the details for another storytelling!).

After returning from the conference, we took into consideration the questions that were asked during the presentation and addressed this further in our paper. Some of the questions we received were around the main themes of the survey, how the questions were formed, and the general question on how robots can be used for other purposes such as helping those who are socially isolated. In this case, Dom and I were able to work together in person to revise the paper before submitting to the journal. It was definitely easier to collaborate in person as we needed to make some substantial changes to comply with the journal formatting requirements and criteria, decisions could be made faster this way. It took a few days of in-person meetings but intensive email exchanging between all three of us until we had the final draft.

After the paper was accepted and went through peer review process, we received feedback with a minor revision (adding an appendix that includes the statistical analysis). This part of the process allowed us one last chance to edit the paper before publication. It was a very crucial stage to ensure that the paper was airtight which only meant more revision and more back and forth emailing. As I mentioned from the beginning, having a final draft is still not the end of the journey. The paper can always be made better, but it is important to know when to stop. After reading over the paper several times and everyone double, triple, quadruple checked the paper, we then agreed on the final editing.

What I have learned from this experience is very valuable to my PhD journey. For practical skills, I personally think it is a good practice to maintain a record of each revision. I found the recommendation from Lachlan very useful for collaborative writing – so instead of everyone editing the master document, we created a copy of it to add our content to with track changes on. All the revisions must be uploaded onto a shared folder but then only one person compiles all the content onto the master document as this will prevent confusion and corrupted files. For personal development, although I was new to this process, I found that the key for successful collaboration consisted of being flexible and open to new suggestions, respecting each other’s opinions, being supportive, and having good communication, which both Lachlan and Dom have shown me 😊.  It was certainly a good first paper writing experience and a nice reminder to be patient with the process.