FLEX-SDK: An Open-Source Software Development Kit for Creating Social Robots

Abstract

We present FLEX-SDK: an open-source software development kit that allows creating a social robot from two simple tablet screens. FLEX-SDK involves tools for designing the robot face and its facial expressions, creating screens for input/output interactions, controlling the robot through a Wizard-of-Oz interface, and scripting autonomous interactions through a simple text-based programming interface. We demonstrate how this system can be used to replicate an interaction study and we present nine case studies involving controlled experiments, observational studies, participatory design sessions, and outreach activities in which our tools were used by researchers and participants to create and interact with social robots. We discuss common observations and lessons learned from these case studies. Our work demonstrates the potential of FLEX-SDK to lower the barrier to entry for Human-Robot Interaction research.

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{alves2022flex,
  title = {FLEX-SDK: An Open-Source Software Development Kit for Creating Social Robots},
  author = {Alves-Oliveira, Patricia and Mihata, Kai and Karim, Raida and Bjorling, Elin A and Cakmak, Maya},
  year = {2022},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology},
  pages = {1--10},
  url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3526113.3545707},
  codeurl = {https://github.com/mayacakmak/emarsoftware},
  type = {conference},
  isbn = {9781450393201},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  doi = {10.1145/3526113.3545707},
  articleno = {66},
  numpages = {10},
  keywords = {personalization, end-user programming, Human-robot interaction},
  location = {Bend, OR, USA},
  series = {UIST '22}
}