I'm going to tell you a bit about a small side project I'm working on as part of Being There Showcase at the Watershed on the 13th September. 

This post is going to be quite big so feel free to jump to the bit that interests you.

  1. About the project
  2. How it works 
  3. Play test

About 

Being There is a large scale research project and part of that research explores the challenges faced when robots share public space. I have some space in the cafe bar during the showcase event. My brief is to encourage the participants to think about how robots can integrate into our future environments.

It's called The Department of Robot City Planning, a factitious governmental department, asking delegates to co-create an ideal Future Robot City. They could in teams or on their own, use the provided forms to design a robot and give it different characteristics which would be dropped into this city. It's characteristics would affect the overall city and new robots could be designed based on how the city is doing.

How it works

Step 1

Participants are welcomed and given some introduction as to what to do. They are handed a form to complete on their own or in small groups.

Step 2

The form is designed to look like an official government form. There are 3 sections to fill out - 1 is a space to draw or doodle the robot. Section 2 is where the robot is characterised and given purpose within the city - you have a maximum of 5 choices between the 10 different categories. Section 3 is more in depth details.

Step 3

The form is returned and is stamped approved before being input to the system and the robot appears in the city, via the paper map.

Play test

Today during studio lunch at Pervasive Media Studio I asked my fellow studio residents to help me play test and feed into how the project could be improved.

The overall group were split into two. The first group set about designing robots based on the introduction. The second group would break off with me to discuss more about the game delivery, without the context of playing. Unfortunately we ran out of time to switch groups as originally planned.

Discussion group

Key feedback and ideas discussed. 

Categories 

  • The existing categories could be tagged to robot ‘body’ parts. Instead of drawing the participants use the parts to build robots. This could also help with continuity of the overall look. On the other hand allowing the complete freedom to create is also desirable.
  • The categories could be defined to change parts of the city - but there is some confusion about the effect these have

Platforms

  • Few questions about how the map exists. 
  • I explained original idea was to have some sort of digital representation of this map where the robots are populated, but due to time and simplicity - making a physical version was the best way forward.
  • What is the takeaway? Is it online - photos / twitter hashtag
  • Utilise Google Maps but dropping in the hand drawings on top.

Map

  • Zones - there could be different parts of the city to represent different areas. It would highlight key areas that people may develop in the future.

Delivery

  • I set out that since I don’t make artworks like this, that the delivery could be taken from more of a performance  

Other

  • There was an idea about limiting robots or letting other robots ‘kill off’ or amalgamate with other. However over the course of a day with a co-created work it seems a bit unfair to say “Your idea of a perfect robot is not mine so it has to go…”
  • Keep it simple
  • Don’t call it a game. There are a whole bunch of preconceived ideas of what a game is and it's evident from feedback there was a greater expectation. What do I call it?
  • Ideas for digital representations could still be done after the event.

Robot group

Set the scene

The first immediate note was a bit of confusion about what to do from the introduction.

"Interesting - I think I need more back-story and/or context"

"It was understandable after further explanation"

"I wasn’t sure why I was doing it at first"

It’s clear that some sort of delivery perhaps in terms of performance is required.

"I think it would benefit from a ‘scene setting’ introduction"

Category confusion

Categories were a problem. The choice of 5 things made it very hard to define the robot in the city

"...a bit confusing. Maybe 2 elements rather than 5 could add more focus."

The categories also didn’t quite match up to some of the pre existing problems that I placed on the map.

"Categories didn’t (all) match the map."

Map

Interesting and glad to see some of the issues brought up in the separate discussion were being brought up by the group. 

"Not sure how it goes from the first stage of doing the forms to the map."

Let me interact

The testers all craved further interaction with the wonderful creations

"Fun to create robots. Not sure I understand what would happen next…"

"The ways in which the robot could interact were limited"

There were some ideas for interactions 

"Seems you need an interaction stage - robot owner picks another robot to interact with?"

Encouragement

"I loved it. I really liked how different everyone’s robots were."

"Fun - I have an unstoppable desire to ‘game’ games but this is fine in this game set up."

This process for me more than anything is about learning new ways of developing a idea in their early stages. I'm very used to working alone and only sharing finished and polished work.

The feeling after the play test has certainly helped in making things clearer how to move forward. Part of the initial nerves of how the idea would be welcomed are now totally gone, shifting my focus entirely on delivery and neatening thing up.

Do come along on the 13th September to submit your robot design!