International Journal of Social Robotics, 2023.
Sharmayne Lim Zhiyu, Hong Pin Koh, Carlos Aguiar, Jacob Chen Shihang, and Yixiao Wang
In a pandemic or post-pandemic world, there are many places that can bring stress to people, such as hospitals whereby patients get anxious when feeling the loss of control of their health conditions; and home offices where people spend long hours catching deadlines alone. This accumulation of mental stress could get worse in a foreseeable future due to the well-accepted work-from-home norm which leads to increasing social isolation. Could social robotics play a positive role in transforming these stressful places into cheerful and restorative places? In this paper, we investigated how people’s perceived restorativeness can be shaped by socially interactive robotic flowers embedded in the interior spaces. We believe this could be a novel and fruitful research direction for social robotics and HRI communities.
Maryam Jahadakbar, Carlos de Aguiar, Arman Nikkhah Dehnavi, Mona Ghandi
This paper discusses a study on augmented toys for children with autism, aiming to improve social interaction and cognitive skills. Two designs were explored: the Music Wheel and the RanGo. The Music Wheel targeted sensory issues like tactile, visual, auditory, fine motor skills, attention, concentration, and communication, while the RanGo aimed to enhance cognitive skills such as turn-taking, collaborative play, and independence in higher game levels. The study underscores the significance of designing toys specifically for children with autism, addressing their unique needs. Augmented toys like the Music Wheel and the RanGo offer an engaging and stimulating tool for learning and social interaction, potentially improving their quality of life.
Carlos de Aguiar, Jimmy Guo, Yuhe Cui
During the pandemic, many have been physically isolated, making online tools the primary means of social interaction. However, texts and chat tools don't adequately convey complex emotions. This lack of face-to-face contact hampers the ability to perceive others' feelings effectively. In this work, we introduce Touch, a system designed to enhance emotional communication. It combines a social media app with a wearable device that receives and displays multi-sensory feedback like light, digital displays, vibrations, and tactile interactions to convey emotions. The app facilitates user interaction in virtual spaces, while the wearable enriches communication by providing another way to express emotions beyond virtual interactions. Together, these components of the Touch project address the problem of communication misunderstandings.
LDT '23: Proceedings of the 2023 Symposium on Learning, Design and Technology
Carlos de Aguiar, Cindy Su, Jennifer Gaw, Weiheng Huang, Kennedy Walker, Yexin Lu Lu
The environment is suffering tremendous changes. Climate change and global warming are a few of the major problems facing the planet. Various kinds of garbage are ending up in the ocean, which is making Earth's environment deteriorate. After exploring the current needs for recycling in the world, we have decided to design a toy for children ages 5-10 that helps reimagine the scope of environmental education. The combination of haptic feedback in the form of lights, and sounds are utilized to help children differentiate the difference between recyclable and non-recyclable objects. The child will recognize how to properly recycle trash based on the feedback given by the toy.
2022 25th International Academic Mindtrek Conference (ACM)
Carlos de Aguiar, Trevor Pinch, Keith Evan Green.
This paper reflects on the push and pull forces that go into co-designing an artifact at the early phase of the design process, and which typically lose touch in later design stages. The design method and approach, how users and designers interact, and the relationship between process and result are all interests. The goal is to analyze a case study and reflect on how the change in the user-designer-artifact relationship also changes the mechanisms by which an artifact is shaped. Following the work of Madeline Akrich, which advises design researchers to explore instances where the design and use of an artifact are not well-matched, this paper investigates how participants and designers collaboratively define the boundaries between the “inside” and “outside” of an artifact at the early phase of the design process.
Journal of Smart Cities and Society, vol. Pre-press, no. Pre-press, pp. 1-14, 2022
Carlos de Aguiar, Gilly Leshed, Trevor Pinch, Keith Evan Green.
Many subgroups remain marginalized from their larger communities. Technologies supporting community building have focused on apps, but many apps fall short of making subgroups such as the LGTBQ+, immigrant and black populations visible and heard. We report on design iterations and evaluations of communIT, a large-scale, cyber-physical platform for helping subgroups build community by making them visible and heard in public places. We conducted a design studio study (N=57), co-design activities with to-scale and full-scale prototypes (N=12 and 28), and an online study (N=197). We learned: preferences for communIT’s design; that communIT may be suitable and useful for diverse groups to engage, share, and interact; that communIT may make an impact on how the larger community perceives diverse groups; and that communIT may be helpful for groups to express their ideas, concerns, and aspirations to the larger community. Our research suggests the promise of large-scale, cyber-physical artifacts for building community.
2022 18th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE)
Yuhe Cui, Zezhi Guo, Yuxin Wang, Xiangzhou Peng, Joon Park, Carlos Aguiar.
During the pandemic, many people have found themselves physically isolated from each other for long periods of time, so online chatting tools have become the main path of communication. However, texts and other chatting tools do not properly transmit the complex emotions hidden behind them. However, texts and other visual information have created an overload of information and made people ignore the complex emotions hidden behind them. Without the stimulation of sensations from face-to-face communications, people, especially lovers, lose their ability to observe their beloved ones’ emotions and feelings effectively.In this work, we propose a device to improve the efficiency of emotional communication - a multi-sensation interaction installation called Doki, which utilizes light, digital display, vibrations, and tactile interaction to transfer emotions. In addition, this device is comfortable to touch and enjoyable to play with. When used in conjunction with its texting applications, this product will help people express emotions over long distances and alleviate feelings of isolation.
MAB20: Media Architecture Biennale 20
Carlos de Aguiar, Keith Green, Trevor Pinch, Gilly Leshed, Kevin Guo, Yeolim Jo.
Despite the promise of Information Technology (IT) to build community, the emergence of (especially) social media has played a factor in reducing the importance of public spaces as loci for civic discourse and for addressing community challenges. In response, we designed communIT, a room-sized, cyber-physical platform installed in underused public spaces. The full-scale prototype, currently under construction, is a foldable, large-scale kirigami, with embedded lighting, audio, displays, and other peripherals, that changes its physical form, lighting, and audio output to match the needs of community groups as they co-create media and exhibit these publicly. We report on the design iterations of communIT through design studios, user studies, co-design activities, and to-scale and full-scale prototyping. communIT offers a design exemplar of a large-scale, cyber-physical artifact that support groups in shaping their identities, practices, and roles in the larger community.
HCI Outdoors: Theory, Design, Methods and Applications (Book Chapter) 2020
Carlos de Aguiar and Keith Evan Green
Despite the promise of social media to bring the world closer together, large segments of local communities, globally, remain misunderstood by or invisible to mainstream society. This problem is attributed, in large part, to digital media’s ascendancy over physical, public space as the locus for civic discourse—the loss of informal and structured encounters between members of communities there. This chapter presents our development and early evaluation of a novel cyberphysical platform, communIT, for community building across diverse local community groups. Deployed in underused public spaces, communIT is an origami-like, folding, robotic surface of billboard scale, with embedded peripherals, that changes form in response to group needs for group co-creation and sharing of media. By collaboratively making and sharing media with communIT, local groups can tell stories, share experiences and aspirations, and advocate within the larger community. Such civic discourse promises the potential to transform personal identity and self-representation, community awareness and responsibility, and wider social relationships with policy-makers.
IASDR 2019
Tong Xu, Clara Dewey, Amil Vira, Carlos de Aguiar, JungKyoon Yoon
Hotel house cleaners are at high risk for musculoskeletal disorders due to strenuous and repetitive tasks: in particular, wrist injury is prevalent due to many combined hours of wiping in inappropriate postures. Erglove is an instant and long-term wrist posture feedback system that allows cleaners to gain awareness of their posture and change their behavior as they wipe.
TEI 2019
Carlos de Aguiar
The emergence of social networks and apps has reduced the importance of physical space as a locus for social interaction. In response, we introduce transFORM, a cyber-physical environment installed in under-used, outdoor, public spaces. transFORM embodies our understanding of how a responsive, cyber-physical architecture can augment social relationship and increase place attachment. In this paper we critically examine the social interaction problem in the context of our increasingly digital society, present our ambition, and introduce our prototype, which we will iteratively design, and test. Cyber-physical interventions at large scale in public spaces are an inevitable future, and this paper serves to establish the fundamental terms of this frontier.
IEEE UV 2018
Carlos de Aguiar, Gilly Leshed, Alexander Bernard, John McKenzie, Camile Andrews, Keith Evan Green
Information Technologies are increasingly embedded into artifacts of the physical world—furniture, rooms, buildings, and urban infrastructure—making communities around-the-globe more connected and, arguably, more intelligent. However, such larger-scaled, social computing artifacts arrive with critical concerns of cost, material choice, design requirements, fabrication means, robust and safe use, power, and resistance to vandalism and the elements. Given the complexity of realizing larger-scaled, computational artifacts, conventional design methods prove inadequate and potentially costly and dangerous if researchers move too quickly to full-scale prototyping. In this paper, we present CoDAS, a hybrid methodological approach that combines elements of well-known HCI methods to effectively develop larger-scale social computing artifacts.
IEEE CASE 2018
Alexander Bernard, Carlos de Aguiar and Keith Evan Green
Origami has had wide-ranging application in mechatronics, robotics, design, and aerospace engineering. This paper offers a model for a rigid, three-dimensional mechanism inspired by "pop-up" origami (i.e., kirigami). In pop-up origami, a cut is introduced to the folded sheet to expand formal possibilities. We present vertex and parallel pop-up origami mechanisms, model the former using the Denavit-Hartenberg Convention, and present a case study that we are actively developing that harnesses the capacity of origami to fold and unfold on demand. We explore this case, calculating its actuation forces, while recognizing that the model presented here has potential to generalize widely.
DIS 2018
Carlos de Aguiar and Keith Evan Green
The emergence of social networks and apps has reduced the importance of physical space as a locus for social interaction. In response, we introduce transFORM, a cyber-physical environment installed in under-used, outdoor, public spaces. transFORM embodies our understanding of how a responsive, cyber-physical architecture can augment social relationship and increase place attachment. In this paper we critically examine the social interaction problem in the context of our increasingly digital society, present our ambition, and introduce our prototype which we will iteratively design and test. Cyber-physical interventions at large scale in public spaces are an inevitable future, and this paper serves to establish the fundamental terms of this frontier.
DIS 2018
Choueiri Marc, Schuyler Duffy, Sanjay Guria, Conrad Mccarthy, Pehuen Moure, Anagha Todalbagi, Yixiao Wang, Carlos de Aguiar, and Keith Evan Green
Can interactive systems be designed for conviviality? A response in the affirmative comes in the form of two convivial tools, Helping Hand and Tilting Table, that empower individuals suffering limitations in reaching and dexterity. Our interdisciplinary team developed Helping Hand and Tilting Table as analogues to a home builder's power tools, but here advanced by mechatronics and transported to home and workplace. This paper presents the two tools in the context of routine, domestic and working tasks, speaks to their design and basic behaviors, and offers an overview of their formative user evaluation involving older adults as part of an iterative, human-centered design process. Helping Hand and Tilting Table serve as design exemplars of enabling technologies targeting people with limitations in performing everyday tasks. But more broadly, striving for conviviality is what this paper hopes to encourage in designers.
Pervasive Health 2018
Verma Siddharth, Phanideep Gonthina, Zachary Hawks, Dixit Nahar, Johnell O. Brooks, Ian D. Walker, Yixiao Wang, Carlos de Aguiar, and Keith E. Green
We introduce a pair of domestic, robotic furnishings aimed at improving the ability of people to live and work independently. The robotic pair-a mobile, robot-cube and a continuum-robotic lamp-work together with their human cohabitants to perform routine tasks of daily living enumerated in the "CS-PFP10" protocol used by rehabilitation therapists to evaluate the capacity for independent living. The iterative design and basic behaviors of the robot pair are considered in this paper, as are results from a formative user evaluation involving older adults and a second study involving twelve clinical staff from a rehabilitation hospital. Finally, we offer recommendations that generalize to related efforts. As robots will inevitably become part of domestic routine, reporting on this robot pair serves as a design exemplar for future development of domestic robots that enable and dignify older individuals.
IEEE CASE 2016
Carlos de Aguiar, Reza Fateminasab, Chase G. Frazelle, Ryan Scott, Yixiao Wang, Michael B. Wooten, Keith E. Green, and Ian D. Walker
We introduce and detail a novel, networked and interoperative suite of robotic furniture. This suite forms a key part of our development of home+, an assistive technology environment aimed at supporting aging in place. This paper elaborates the design and construction process for the three robotic furniture core elements of home+: a chair, featuring gesture-controlled assistive lift; a morphing side table; and an adaptive screen. The sensor suite, networking, and user interface for the system is described and discussed. We report on initial experiments with senior citizens using the system.