The shape of Simon

Abstract

In the study of human-robot interaction, the aesthetic design of socially active machines is a relatively new endeavor, and there are few precedents on which to rely for guidance. Whereas some of the early social robots such as Kismet [1] had expressive body characteristics such as eyeballs, eyelids and ears, the form was not unified into a holistic design. That is, features varied from one another in aesthetic characteristics, and the overall form still gave the impression of being a metal frame to which a series of parts were affixed. As subsequent social robots have been developed, they have varied wildly in terms of overall aesthetic creative direction. In the development of Simon, a humanoid robot currently in progress at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the authors sought to give industrial design an important role, and included creative direction at the very start of the project. Mechanical design, AI development and industrial design were all explored in tandem. The shell design, particularly for the head, was not looked upon as an external layer that would sheath the underlying mechanisms, but rather a core means for defining the robot's entire movement and behavioral characteristics.