A participated parametric design experience on humanoid robotics

The project hereby presented illustrates the case study of a participated parametric design workshop, where the object is a hacked version of Poppy, an open source 3D printable humanoid robot developed by Matthieu Lapeyre. Poppy is used by a large community of researches whose focus is mainly on engineering and IT aspects of the platform development. Our activity, held in a larger dissemination event, was aimed instead at collecting data regarding users’ perception of a companion robot, caregiver robot or evil robot. Our goal is to define aesthetic principles that influence users’ appreciation and affection towards a humanoid robot. A parametric definition developed with Grasshopper 3D, easily editable thanks to a simple and intuitive interface, was used as a tool to involve users in a co-design activity which results are analyzed and presented in the following contribution.