At DIS’23, we presented a project called “Exploring the Design Space of Extra-Linguistic Expression for Robots”. We explored the new design space of the use of fluid inspired by animation and comic expressions to enhance the expressiveness of social robots.

This page focuses on introducing the making (or I can say implementation or development) part of our project. For detail on our design process and user study findings, please see our paper!

https://youtu.be/hWeX5Mv8nYA

Table of contents:

If you have any questions or consider collaboration, feel free to contact me (email to ekoike[at]wisc[dot]edu or DM me on Twitter). Also, the data (STL, dxf, etc.) is available here. (I’m still uploading some data! Sorry for the inconvenience)

💭 The First Prototype

â–Ľ Our first prototype of fluid-based expression involved a fog-generation device integrated into the body of a bespoke mobile robot.

firstprototype.png

â–Ľ Sketched out design ideas for a robot expressing its action/internal states with fog.

DesignBehavior.png

â–Ľ Created a simulation of the robot on 3DCG.

PatternA.gif

PatternB.gif

â–Ľ Planned implementation

ImplementationPlan.png

▼ Implemented the actual robot! Here’s the (kind of) blueprint and photos.

MechanicalStructure.png

Fabricated.png

â–Ľ Smoke Generation Module