Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Peter Worthy’s research sits at the intersection of human-robot interaction, child development, and participatory design, with a particular focus on how young children engage with social robots. His major contributions center on understanding children’s expectations, strategies, and tactile behaviors when interacting with early-stage robotic prototypes. In his most-cited work, “Children’s Expectations and Strategies in Interacting with a Wizard of Oz Robot” (2015, 9 citations), Worthy analyzed how 23 children aged 2–6 navigated interactions with a tablet-based robot, revealing key insights into their cognitive and social strategies. He further advanced the field through his pioneering use of “pretotyping”—a lightweight, low-cost approach to gauging user interest before full-scale development—demonstrated in “Social Cardboard: Pretotyping a Social Ethnodroid in the Wild” (2016, 8 citations). Worthy also developed novel tools and techniques for sensing and interpreting children’s touch with robots, as detailed in “Hand in Hand: Tools and Techniques for Understanding Children’s Touch with a Social Robot” (2016, 6 citations). His work is notable for its methodological innovation, combining ethnographic observation with early-stage prototyping to create safer, more responsive robots for educational settings. With cumulative citations approaching 40, Worthy’s research has laid important groundwork for designing robots that can meaningfully engage with the youngest users.