Exploration of Moving Things in the Home

Abstract

With more and more people getting older and needing extra medical attention, robots may be a way of helping them live independently at home longer. Robots in the home, however, can gather lots of personal information about people living in the home and a robot may be confusing to understand. It is therefore important that these robots respect the residents' privacy and can be seen as friendly and welcome in the home. Future designers of robots can address privacy concerns by examining what data the robot collects, what dilemmas can come from the data collection, and design to address the dilemmas. In addition, these designers can use techniques from animation, such as the twelve principles of animation, to add expressiveness to a robot and make it easier to understand. The dissertation presents a technique for moving a robot with the animation principle of slow in and slow out and investigate how people experience a robot moving in the home using this technique.