http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7614 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46667 Affordable avatar control system for personal robots Lee, Jun Ki, S. M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Social robots (personal robots) emphasize individualized social interaction and communication with people. To maximize communication capacity of a personal robot, designers make it more anthropomorphic (or zoomorphic), and people tend to interact more naturally with such robots. However, adapting anthropomorphism (or zoomorphism) in social robots makes morphology of a robot more complex; thus, it becomes harder to control robots with existing interfaces. The Huggable is a robotic Teddy bear platform developed by the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab. It has its specific purpose in healthcare, elderly care, education, and family communication. It is important that a user can successfully convey the meaningful context in a dialogue via the robot's puppeteering interface. I investigate relevant technologies to develop a robotic puppetry system for a zoomorphic personal robot and develop three different puppeteering interfaces to control the robot: the website interface, wearable interface, and sympathetic interface. The wearable interface was examined through a performance test and the web interface was examined through a user study. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-79). http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46666 Infofield : an aura recognizing digital information of everyday environment Lee, Sanghoon, S. M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts and Sciences Many ubiquitous computing scenarios are enabled by the ability to detect and identify objects in a user's environment, and recently Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been considered an affordable technology for providing such ability. However, RFID approaches have been flawed: when they operate at long range, they fail to provide adequate context as to which tagged objects are the subject of the user's interest; and when tuned for short range operation, they require the user to explicitly scan the tagged object. In addition, the knowledge gained from the user interacting with the object is limited to identification. This thesis proposes an ambient metaphor for detecting daily environments suitable for the upcoming far-field UHF RFID infrastructure. A user carries a mobile RFID reader, which creates a sphere of detection field to monitor RFID tags surrounding the user. The reader silently monitors the objects and functions as an agent that supports the user's consciousness of events happening outside of the user's attention. With sensor-enhanced RFID tags, our system does not limit itself to identification, but also provides the status of the corresponding item. The data from the sensors are used to distinguish a tag in a multiple tag environment and to describe the interactions between the user and the host object. This improves the selectivity and the context-awareness of the system. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-64). http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46665 Persuasive robotics : how robots change our minds Siegel, Michael Steven This thesis explores the extent to which socially capable humanoid robots have the potential to influence human belief, perception and behavior. Sophisticated computational systems coupled with human-like form and function render such robots as potentially powerful forms of persuasive technology. Currently, there is very little understanding of the persuasive potential of such machines. As personal robots become a reality in our immediate environment, a better understanding of the mechanisms behind, and the capabilities of, their ability to influence, is becoming increasingly important. This thesis proposes some guiding principles by which to qualify persuasion. A study was designed in which the MDS (Mobile Dexterous Social) robotic platform was used to solicit visitors for donations at the Museum of Science in Boston. The study tests some nonverbal behavioral variables known to change persuasiveness in humans, and measures their effect in human-robot interaction. The results of this study indicate that factors such as robot-gender, subject-gender, touch, interpersonal distance, and the perceived autonomy of the robot, have a huge impact on the interaction between human and robot, and must be taken into consideration when designing sociable robots. This thesis applies the term persuasive robotics to define and test the theoretical and practical implications for robot-triggered changes in human attitude and behavior. Its results provide for a vast array of speculations with regard to what practical applications may become available using this framework. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-174). http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46594 Contestational design : innovation for political activism Hirsch, Edward A., 1970- This thesis presents contestational design, a unique form of design activity whose aim is promote particular agendas in contested political arenas. I propose a framework for analyzing contestational design processes, which I then apply to two initiatives that developed communications infrastructure for activist groups. The first case study is TXTmob, an SMS-broadcast system that I developed with an ad-hoc coalition of activists to support mass mobilizations during the 2004 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. It has been used by thousands of people and has inspired new projects in both the nonprofit and commercial sectors. The second case study is Dialup Radio, a telephone-based independent media system that I developed with a civil society organization in Zimbabwe. It was intended to disseminate activist information, particularly to Zimbabwe's rural poor. Despite limited infrastructure and government restrictions, several prototypes were produced and tested in Zimbabwe. After describing each case study individually, I turn to a comparison of their respective processes and the artifacts that each produced. Examining the cases side by side, I identify a set of common issues with which contestational designers contend at various points in the design process. Finally, I describe a set of organizing principles that distinguish contestational design from other kinds of design activity. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-142).