Exploring the User Needs and Experience of the University Guidance Robot

During the orientation week, new students face different challenges that are hectic. International students are especially confused about the new education system and come across many difficulties to overcome these challenges. There are too many information, which can be overwhelming. Not only for internationals, but for Finnish students also face information management issues. Although there are tutors assigned to help and take care of them, the tutors are not available at all times. Thus, we decided to design an interactive university guidance robot that could help the students whenever needed with relevant information. Our aim was to understand the users’ expectations and design the guidance robot to provide relevant information. There were also latent user needs and these can vary according to different culture. Thus, we addressed the needs according to Finnish, Chinese and Indian culture and aim to design the robot according to the needs of the target users. In the second phase, we conducted trials with new students to understand the experience of the participants. Moreover, we tried find out what was the preferred tasks among the students. We used Pepper robot as the platform for guidance robot. According to our research, the new students found the robot useful and it successfully addressed the needs of the participants. Moreover, the university guidance robot evoked experiences like nurture, fellowship, natural/humanlike and playfulness. In this thesis, we report how we collected the users’ expectation, analyzed the data to gather design implications, implemented functionalities in the university guidance robot and performed trials

Robot e cobot nell’impresa e nella scuola

The book deals with the transversal theme of hymn-technological development through robots and cobots, the introduction of which crosses now business, scholastic and educational contexts. Starting from an introduction aimed at questioning what is meant from for innovation and what could be the minimum conditions for it we can actually speak of innovative contexts, the volume takes the distances from techno-enthusiastic or techno-critical approaches assumed a priori and suggested manages a departure from a win win perspective at any cost which does not properly reflect on some crucial issues in supporting the innovative processes, including the training of workers (in primis), the legal perspectives, as well as the needs in the terms of new tools to ensure the management of health and safety at work. The volume continues by addressing the potential of collaborative robots in helping people to carry out more or less complex tasks, ibid including learning; therefore, some uses of robotics are presented in educational contexts of school or higher education where robotics could be used as a tool to support people with autism, contrast bullying phenomena, help develop skills transversal and space-time trends, also through the use of the so-called swarm robotics. Despite the difference of languages and specific perspectives that distinguish the different chapters, the volume is oriented to a reader curious and aware that business, school and university can play the their game in synergy, learning to listen to each other and to reflect more frequently-mind about the challenges that unite them

Robot e cobot nell’impresa e nella scuola

The book deals with the transversal theme of hymn-technological development through robots and cobots, the introduction of which crosses now business, scholastic and educational contexts. Starting from an introduction aimed at questioning what is meant from for innovation and what could be the minimum conditions for it we can actually speak of innovative contexts, the volume takes the distances from techno-enthusiastic or techno-critical approaches assumed a priori and suggested manages a departure from a win win perspective at any cost which does not properly reflect on some crucial issues in supporting the innovative processes, including the training of workers (in primis), the legal perspectives, as well as the needs in the terms of new tools to ensure the management of health and safety at work. The volume continues by addressing the potential of collaborative robots in helping people to carry out more or less complex tasks, ibid including learning; therefore, some uses of robotics are presented in educational contexts of school or higher education where robotics could be used as a tool to support people with autism, contrast bullying phenomena, help develop skills transversal and space-time trends, also through the use of the so-called swarm robotics. Despite the difference of languages and specific perspectives that distinguish the different chapters, the volume is oriented to a reader curious and aware that business, school and university can play the their game in synergy, learning to listen to each other and to reflect more frequently-mind about the challenges that unite them