Category: Touch

In a world of high-tech sensors and machine learning, it seems like we can build a machine to detect anything. But if people have a hard time figuring out how they feel, how can we build machines that detect emotion? Related academic publications > P. H. Bucci, X. L. Cang, H. Mah, L. Rodgers, and… Continue reading How should we measure emotion?

Given what we found when we asked voice actors to puppet our robots, we wanted to test how the stories people told about our robots impacted their perceptions of the robot’s emotions. Turns out, it was a lot. Related academic publications > P. Bucci, L. Zhang, X. L. Cang, and K. E. MacLean, “Is it… Continue reading Complex stories about simple robots

Designing naturalistic robot motion is tough. We found that using our voices to make a robot move gave us some delightful expressions. But when we tested the system with voice actors, we were surprised to see how engaged and emotional they were. Related academic publications > P. Bucci, X. L. Cang, A. Valair, D. Marino,… Continue reading Voodle: translating sound to movement

Developing furry robots that can detect and respond to emotional touch requires soft touch sensors and gesture detection algorithms. We developed a fabric touch sensor and a system that could detect different touches—like pats, scratches, and tickles. Related academic publications > Cang, X. L., Bucci, P., Strang, Allen, J., MacLean, K. E., and Liu, H.… Continue reading Detecting gestures on a fabric touch sensor

The CuddleBits are handheld furry robots that express emotions through breathing movements. We wanted to make a lot of different sizes and shapes, so I created two design systems that could be easily modified (full instructions here). They were cheap, simple tools to study emotional touch. We wrapped them in our fabric touch sensor and… Continue reading Small furry robots