The Interplay of Data, Technology, Place and People for Smart Learning by Hendrik Knoche Elvira Popescu & Antonio Cartelli

Author:Hendrik Knoche, Elvira Popescu & Antonio Cartelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

3.2 Workshop 2

Participants: Participant 1 through 5 all took part in the workshop which was also supervised by a physiotherapist following the development of the project.

Goal: After initial observation of the participants’ abilities in workshop 1, the second workshop was arranged with the main goal of introducing the participants to the first prototype of the robot car and two different controllers. The workshop should also investigate whether the participants enjoyed controlling the robot car.

Procedures: The participants were introduced to the car one at a time and was given the opportunity to try out the two controllers. It was decided to make two controllers to provide a challenging but manageable controller option for all participants despite of varying capabilities. The first controller was based on a big push button that did not necessarily demand fine motor control from the user as it could be actuated using the arm or hand. When controlled by this button, the robot car would move in circles by default and drive forward while the button was pushed. The second controller consisted of a joystick that enabled participants to move the robot car freely while controlling the speed as well. Participants received an introduction to the controllers and the robot car before attempting to control it, and afterwards they were asked about their experience with each controller and the robot car in general.

Results: The area in which the participants were able to control the robot car was not restricted in any way which resulted in many problems with cars colliding with or getting stuck under furniture, and because of this the car also occasionally escaped the visual field of the participants. A small joystick was used for the first prototype due to limitations on available hardware at the time, which clearly was too fragile and ill-suited to the grip of the participants. This added confirmation to results from the previous workshop where it was found that controllers should not rely on fine motor control of the user. Moreover, the responsiveness of the joystick was too great for most participants and participant 1 and 5 especially would push the joystick in unintended directions. Multiple participants got confused about the orientation of the robot car resulting in reversed interpretations of forward/backward and right/left directions.

According to the participants themselves, they all enjoyed controlling the robot car and the controllers’ ease of use were rated highly and almost equally by participant 1, 2 and 3 while participant 4 thought of the joystick as being easiest to use and participant 5 rated the button as being easiest to use.

Reflections: A lot of useful design improvements could be deduced from the participants’ first exposure to the robot car and its controllers. The area of operation of the car should be restricted, the equipment should generally be more durable and the joystick specifically should be larger. Further changes to the joystick should be made to avoid that participants push it in unintended directions, and the orientation of the car should be conveyed more clearly.

Additionally,

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