An extensible platform for interactive, entertaining social experiences with an animatronic character

Abstract

The fields of human-robot interaction and entertainment robotics are truly interdisciplinary, combining the best of computer science, psychology, and mechanical engineering. However, they are areas which have thus far been largely limited to technical specialists, excluding animators, writers, and other artists from the development of interactive content. We attempt to open these fields to non-technologists through an easily extensible platform for the rapid development of social interactions between humans and animatronic characters. Specifically, the Interbots Platform consists of 1) a servo-driven animatronic character named Quasi and 2) a suite of tools to author decisions, animate the character, and design complete, interactive, entertaining social experiences. We have created a graphical editor to author behaviors for the character, as well as extensions for Alias Maya and Macromedia Director, empowering artists already familiar with these applications to create animatronic-enabled content. The usability of the Interbots Platform was verified when interdisciplinary student teams of artists and computer scientists were able to create engaging entertainment experiences with Quasi in two-week development cycles.