potential game “expansion-pack” – on expressivity

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Amy LaViers

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Jun 8, 2017, 5:41:05 PM6/8/17
to Robot Design Game

Hello!

 

I’m new to this Google group, but I learned about your effort last year at (and after) RSS when my graduate student Umer Huzaifa came back with a deck of cards, which my lab has played a few times.  We really love both the chance to think about how to formulate ideas and papers, but also the chance to debate about robots more generally that the game provides.

 

This spring I offered a seminar course (taken by my lab members and Alli Niles) in which we played the game one day – when sunny skies required we sit outside and eat ice cream – and brainstormed some new card ideas.  This is a more polished version of that brainstorm, which reflects on the topics of my course and the questions my research group is interested in. 

 

The goal is to include some tasks, environments, and resources for human-facing tasks.  I’ve also proposed a new resource category: Form.

 

Hope it might be interesting for you guys, and please let me know if you have any feedback!

 

Best,

Amy


Link to PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n6dolpndnhfpjnf/expressivity_expansion_robot_design.pdf?dl=0 

Link to editable PPT, with image sources: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9aqox81wck8njcp/cards%20copy.pptx?dl=0


Andrea Censi

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Jun 8, 2017, 11:53:22 PM6/8/17
to Amy LaViers, Robot Design Game
Dear Amy,

I love the new cards.

I think we really needed a "form" resource type; we had dismissed a few ideas because they didn't fit any of the previous resource types, but they would fit in "form".

Of the cards that you designed regarding movement --- I'm afraid that these two in particular are a bit too vague for most attendees. Could you simplify them a bit? 

For example, what is the relation between the picture of the handshake and "spoke-like directional"?

Inline image 1Inline image 2

I'm not 


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Dylan Shell

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Jun 10, 2017, 1:30:53 AM6/10/17
to Amy LaViers, Robot Design Game, Andrea Censi
Hi Amy,

Firstly, thanks for sharing. :-)

I recall playing a round of RDG where the task was to "change a baby's diaper" (on Mars, if I recall correctly). It was interesting because the reviewers demanded some consideration of (petite) human-robot interaction before they're accept the paper. I should've reflected on the interchange and made more careful note of the need for tasks involving people, and also some way of realizing those aspects within the design.

I like your environments and tasks; they certainly are an addition I'd like to add to my deck. (And double yay!, for the robot assisted evacuation scenario!)   It'll also mean that I'll have to sit in on one of your tutorials on Laban and Bartenieff.

For your "blast from the past", I'm still turning over your use of the word "memory" in my mind. It's a different (and creative) angle to its use as a resource, and is clearly a break from the "storage" form of the word we used. Part of me wonders if it might straddle a type of form and a type of communication? Just as Anthropomorphism allows your design to situated on a continuum closer to some general humanoid or vague-human-like shape, your retro styling card gets you bell-bottoms, or number-5, looks. But like Character Development, when you appeal to the "blast from the past" card for uses of phrases like "Groovy" or "Uh oh, daddy-oh!", you're situating the system on continuum of cultural referents.    As it cuts across things, I wonder if it might not be better treated as a special card?

Andrea, did your email get cut off? My version of it ends with "I'm not".

If that is truly so and you've shuffled off, we'd better get to arranging a memorial service pronto, right?

Sincerely,
   Dylan


Andrea Censi

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Jun 10, 2017, 2:19:40 AM6/10/17
to Dylan Shell, Amy LaViers, Robot Design Game

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 1:30 PM, Dylan Shell <dsh...@tamu.edu> wrote:

Andrea, did your email get cut off? My version of it ends with "I'm not".

If that is truly so and you've shuffled off, we'd better get to arranging a memorial service pronto, right?

Thanks, Dylan, for inquiring about my existence. Given that I can write this email, I conclude that I continue to exist. 

(Yes, my email was cut off -- a copy and paste screw-up, trying to paste in the images.)

A.

Amy LaViers

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Jun 12, 2017, 12:18:08 PM6/12/17
to Robot Design Game
Dylan and Andrea,

Thanks for the replies and feedback!

On obscurity of movement terms:  yes, I was pushing the envelope a bit here to encourage people to learn about an increasingly popular resource in robotics research, which I happen to be passionate about!  Similarly, there are cards which refer to things I'm not well-versed on, e.g., some of the sensors mentioned.  I've worked to clarify in the new version linked below -- while maintaining enough subversive-ness to keep myself happy :)

On "memory":  I think this is probably a very skewed usage which I only employed so that I was adding a card in every category; I've reworded to make it more hardware-focused  (side note: it seems most cards are hardware-focused, but need not be; I am curious about the origin of that convention).
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