Mobile Life Internship Blog » actDresses

Roomba exploration: tags on iRobot

Rob — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:16:28 +0000

Last week, I started working with the Roomba platform: the hovering robot.
As a first exploration, I created several tags (spiral, random, sweep, wall-follow, fast, slow), and matching behaviours.
The tags can also be combined: spiral + fast = a fast spiral. Wall-follow + wall-follow + spiral = a wall-following robot that moves in small spirals.

iRobot tags – actDresses exploration – robtieben.com/stockholm from Rob Tieben on Vimeo.

Week 3-4: direct manipulation & agents exploration

Rob — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:17:21 +0000

The last weeks involved exploration again, this time focused on direct manipulation and agents. Discussions, prototypes, and of course iterations created the base of this exploration.

Goal of exploration:
- create WYSIWYG functionality: appearance = behaviour
- create complex/abstract behaviour (interaction, emergence, if-then, etc)
* explore & analyse possibilities
* explore user interaction & understanding

Direct manipulation
* program 1 object
* wearables -> behaviour = complexity

Lemmings behaviour
* objects interact via simple command objects
* wearables + interaction = complexity

Manipulating the agent
* program different objects to activate each other
* “The Incredible Machine”: creating complex system = complexity

Infect the agents
* program different objects to change each other
* system, cause and effect = complexity

Follow up directions
* direct manipulation & users => focus on user userstanding & robot understanding
combine dresses, what happens?
user learns by doing, robot also learns?

* direct manipulative interaction => focus on manipulating interaction
user (unconscious?) designs a complex system
lemmings/TIM principle

* dress changes behaviour <-> behaviour changes dress
concrete vs abstract
changeable dress vs behaviour IS the dress

* shift from ‘understanding inner workings’ to ‘understanding perceivable behaviour’
behaviour ‘behaves’, user changes something, behaviour changes
user forms mental model, does not have to be correct -> understanding should ‘match’

Week 1, quick exploration

Rob — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:33:05 +0000

In order to get a grasp on actDresses, robots, intelligence, and everything surrounding it, I started with some quick exploration.

My goal was to explore how you can influence the behaviour of a robot, by using physical and direct adaptations to the appearance of the robot. After locking myself in the workshop for half a day, a series of small little ‘robots’ with accessories had emerged. Robots with blindfolds, movable ear-sensors and attachable sails are just a few of the examples.

robots_explo1.001

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After analysing and discussing these first explorations, I created the following ’structure’:

Direct manipulation

- altering sensors -> alter ‘handicap‘ of robot -> alter behaviour
- altering actuators -> alter ‘degrees of freedom‘ of robot -> alter behaviour
- altering configuration -> alter ‘capabilities‘ of robot -> alter behaviour
If we look at the examples, it is clear that direct manipulation is key here: one physically directly alters the robot in order to physically directly alter the behaviour.

direct manipulation of the robot = direct manipulation of the behaviour
robot = behaviour
signifier = robot
signified = behaviour
signifier = signified

signifier = signified = robot = behaviour

Influencing behaviour
There are four levels of influencing behaviour, when telling a robot what to do
- guiding: giving commands at every step
- cooking: giving a list of directions that the robot has to follow
- aiming: giving an aim that the robot has to fulfill
- stating: giving a certain behavioral state for the robot

Publicity
Commands or programming that is given to a robot, can be visualised on three levels
- public
- semi-public
- private