Category: Human-Robot Interaction

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Espositi Federico – PhD Student

Federico Espositi graduated in Automation Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, studying social robotics and artificial intelligence inspired by biological neural processes. Alongside his technical path, he explored various creative and storytelling mediums, including graphic novel adn videogames. Since 2010 he has studied theater acting, writing and directing, developing short and feature plays. He started working as a theater pedagogist since 2017, adressing starytelling, acting, musical and immersive theater. Since 2021, he has been pursuing a PhD at Politecnico di Milano investigating nonverbal communication through new forms of technological expression, such as virtual reality, robotics and wearable devices, presented as interactive installations at Milan Digital Week 2022 and 2023, and hybridising phygital devices with performative arts. His artistic work is characterized by collaboration and an investigation of communicative potential across different media.

Reference for First Contact research line @AIRLAB. Read about the project here.

Personal Website: http://www.ricordium.com/

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Robotower

Robotower is a game where an omnidirectional robot and a human player confront in a playground 4×4 m, having four towers on the corners. Aim of the robot is to knock down the towers. Aim of the human player is to defend the towers for at least 3′ by intercepting the robot’s path. The human player can also push a button on the tower, this will lit a LED every 2.5″; when all four LEDs are lit, the human player has conquered the tower, and the robot cannot aim at it any longer. Of course, while the player pushes a button the robot may aim at another tower.

The system can estimate the the player’s skill on line and modify the capabilities of the robot to obtain an even game, in accordance to the theory of flow. There is also the possibility to trigger deceptive actions, which reinforce even more the sensation to play against a rational agent.

Presentation of the game.