Social Robot Design

This is the result of session 7 in my course on Social Robot Design (2025/2026). The content of this session was mainly about further designing a design tool to prototype the behavior of the robot, and also evaluate it on the robot itself. We Session 7 Test the card game Designing for robot expression through iterations of scenario-based interactions. Option 1: Pick random cards Expression/behaviour (puppeteering the robot) We notice a big threshold to start actually acting. It might help if we start by acting with the Miro (moving its parts). ...

This is the result of session 6 in my course on Social Robot Design (2025/2026). The content of this session was mainly about designing a design tool to prototype the behavior of the robot, and also evaluate it on the robot itself. Assignment: Design Behaviour Design Tools Question to be answered What can help you as a designer prototype (high level) robot behaviour? Especially tools that do not rely on a Wizard of Oz approach are welcome — or think of interesting hybrids. What could help you prototype and test? ...

This is the result of session 4 in my course on Social Robot Design (2025/2026). The content of this session was mainly about the different types of embodiment that robots can have, what embodiments are used in social robot research, and how we can design a tool and think about how to design embodiments. This was done with: Liz van Ginderen (s27349745) Anna Hornman (s3056600) Oyindrila Sen Gupta (s3697762) Sarah Mans (s2306379) Social Robotics: Embodiment, Design, and Prototyping Tools 1. State of the Art in Social Robot Research You might have been considering a number of application areas for social robotics since the start of this course. We have shown examples in education, healthcare, the hospitality sector, etc. Very often research (or simple experiments in the wild) are carried out by hardware that happens to be available, rather than hardware that is specifically designed for a purpose (hence you see research with Pepper the librarian, Pepper the trainer and Pepper the educator). ...

This is the result of session 5 in my course on Social Robot Design (2025/2026). The content of this session was mainly about the ethical aspects about robotics. In the lecture we played out several plays (LARPs). The first one was about an app that could predict your life expectancy, but it was paid and promoted inequality. We were asked to play out the roles where each of us got a different role (having the app, and not having the app). ...

This is the result of session 1 in my course on Social Robot Design (2025/2026). This is done with: Liz van Ginderen (s27349745) Anna Hornman (s3056600) Oyindrila Sen Gupta (s3697762) Sarah Mans (s2306379) 2. Invent a case: How can I check your well-being? Target group Students (ages 18–24) ← Chosen focus Children (ages 5–12) Elderly Well-being types Overall well-being List of questions (see next page) Emotional regulation / mood tracking Physical activity / gamified exercise Social connection / combating loneliness Cases Suggest calling a friend or family member — Mindfulness Breathing exercise — Sleep hygiene / bedtime routines, mental overload / overworking Study session check-in — Do you need a break? Research questions How can the Miro robot…. How can the Miro robot be expanded upon to help students (ages 18–24) with their overall well-being? How can the Miro robot transform to guide students (ages 18–24) through a study session? 3. Get familiar with design methods The cards we picked were Scenario analysis, Storyboard and Experience map. ...