Playing with Robots: Performing Arts Techniques for Designing and Understanding Robot Group Movement

Philippa Madill , Matthew Newton , Huanjun Zhao , Yichen Lian , Zachary McKendrick , Patrick Finn , Aditya Shekhar Nittala , Ehud Sharlin

chi-2025-madill.pdf

Abstract

In this work, we introduce a formal design approach derived from the performing arts to design robot group behaviour. In our first experiment, we worked with professional actors, directors, and non-specialists using a participatory design approach to identify common group behaviour patterns. In a follow-up studio work, we identified twelve common group movement patterns, transposed them into a performance script, built a scale model to support the performance process, and evaluated the patterns with a senior actor under studio conditions. We evaluated our refined models with 20 volunteers in a user study in the third experiment. Results from our affective circumplex modelling suggest that the patterns elicit positive emotional responses from the users. Also, participants performed better than chance in identifying the motion patterns without prior training. Based on our results, we propose design guidelines for social robots’ behaviour and movement design to improve their overall comprehensibility in interaction.

Keywords:  HumanitiesArtRobotsMethod

Reference

Philippa Madill, Matthew Newton, Huanjun Zhao, Yichen Lian, Zachary McKendrick, Patrick Finn, Aditya Shekhar Nittala, Ehud SharlinPlaying with Robots: Performing Arts Techniques for Designing and Understanding Robot Group MovementIn Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25)ACM, New York, NY, USA  Page: 1-.  DOI: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713996