RobotIST: Interactive Situated Tangible Robot Programming

Abstract

Situated tangible robot programming allows programmers to reference parts of the workspace relevant to the task by indicating objects, locations, and regions of interest using tangible blocks. While it takes advantage of situatedness compared to traditional text-based and visual programming tools, it does not allow programmers to inspect what the robot detects in the workspace, nor to understand any programming or execution errors that may arise. In this work we propose to use a projector mounted on the robot to provide such functionality. This allows us to provide an interactive situated tangible programming experience, taking advantage of situatedness, both in user input and system output, to reference parts of the robot workspace. We describe an implementation and evaluation of this approach, highlighting its differences from traditional robot programming.