Designing Social Robots for Learning: HRI Participatory Design Workshop

With the emergence of affordable and open-source AI social robots in education, it is essential to involve the end-users—students—in the development process. To address this, we conducted a pilot participatory design workshop to explore university students’ preferences for robotic study companions in Guyana. Our findings reveal a preference among students for robots equipped with multimodal communication capabilities alongside various ethical and social concerns. Most students kept their original designs unchanged but updated their feature lists despite learning about state-of-the-art Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research. This study provides insights into the user-centred design process, focusing on university students’ unique needs and preferences for social robot companions. We hope to spark new discussions on the participatory design study method within HRI research and encourage the development of open-source AI social robot study companions.