An Extensible Platform for Interactive, Entertaining Social Experiences with an Animatronic Character
ABSTRACT
The fields of human-robot interaction and entertainmentrobotics are truly interdisciplinary, combining the best ofcomputer science, psychology, and mechanical engineering.However, they are areas which have thus far been largelylimited to technical specialists, excluding animators, writers,and other artists from the development of interactive content.We attempt to open these fields to non-technologiststhrough an easily extensible platform for the rapid developmentof social interactions between humans and animatroniccharacters. Specifically, the Interbots Platform consists of1) 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 behaviorsfor the character, as well as extensions for Alias Mayaand Macromedia Director, empowering artists already familiarwith these applications to create animatronic-enabledcontent. The usability of the Interbots Platform was verifiedwhen interdisciplinary student teams of artists and computerscientists were able to create engaging entertainmentexperiences with Quasi in two-week development cycles.
1. INTRODUCTION
The past past five years have seen an explosion in the consumerrobotics industry. With over one million units soldsince their introduction in 2002, iRobot’s Roomba vacuumcleaner has paved the way for a robotic presence in the home[8]. Realizing that consumers crave entertainment as muchas (if not more than) amenities, companies began introducingentertainment robots into the market. The popularityof Sony’s AIBO dog and Wow Wee Toys’ Robosapien havedemonstrated that entertainment robotics is a viable industry.Unlike the traditional linearly pre-scripted show animatronicsfound in many theme and amusement parks, the noveltyof household entertainment robots is in their interactivity.Sony’s AIBO, for example, has the ability to locate specificobjects, recognize its owner’s voice, and sense when it isbeing touched. The robotic dogs are capable of “feeling”six emotions, and are shipped with a default personalitythat changes over time as their owners interact with them.The latest versions of AIBO feature official support for wirelessremote control as well as the ability to download smallpersonality additions such as games and sounds. More advancedfeatures such as total personality make-overs andthe ability to create custom interactive games are not officiallysupported. Ambitious hobbyists may utilize officialand third party software developer kits to fully customizetheir AIBO, however, these kits require knowledge of lowlevelprogramming concepts.The Interbots Initiative research group at the EntertainmentTechnology Center (ETC) seeks to leverage the successof household entertainment robotics and the interestof the hobbyist community to introduce interactivity to thefield of higher-end custom animatronics. We also intend togive non-technologists the ability to develop content for interactiveanimatronic experiences. These objectives will beaccomplished through two main goals: 1) Develop a fully interactive,autonomous animatronic character that is believableand entertaining, and 2) Develop an extensible platformthat allows artists and other non-technologists to rapidly designand create complete, interactive, and entertaining socialexperiences with animatronic characters. We feel thatan embodied character is critical to a believable animatronicexperience– no matter how impressive the technology, it isimpossible to suspend an audience’s disbelief and create theillusion of life without an engaging character and personality.We also believe that the most successful entertainmentexperiences involve the contributions of writers, animators,sculptors, painters, and other artists. Therefore, the developmentof simple, intuitive content creation tools thatallow non-technologists to author content for entertainmentrobotics is essential.

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