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In January 2024, over 130 members of the public experienced The Encounter, a controlled experiment and immersive art experience that explored the expressive potential of swarm robotics. This paper details our experiments in staging the first encounters with ‘stone-robots’, an autonomous swarm of robotic vehicles disguised as ancient standing stones, which the public perceived as ‘moving stones.’ By not anchoring participant expectations of the ‘stone’ agents with the term ‘robot’ and preserving the mysterious sense of encountering a ‘new species’, this study demonstrates that non-anthropomorphic robots can stimulate transcendental and contemplative interactions usually considered exclusive to humans and the ‘natural’ world. Drawing on principles from theater, we introduce how a ‘First Encounter Dramaturgy’ can guide the crafting of first meetings. We describe participants’ perceptions of their experiences of first encounters with a ‘new species’ of robots. Overall, our approach resulted in participants transitioning from curious anticipation to reflective engagement and enchantment, reduction in negative emotion, and an increase in and more diversity of positive emotion.

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First Encounter Dramaturgy with Multi-robot Swarms (Without Mentioning Robots!)

  • 会议论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Elena Vella,
  • Robert Ellis Walton,
  • Daniel A. Williams,
  • Goran Đurić,
  • Aleksandra Michalewicz,
  • Justin Green,
  • Airlie Chapman

摘要

In January 2024, over 130 members of the public experienced The Encounter, a controlled experiment and immersive art experience that explored the expressive potential of swarm robotics. This paper details our experiments in staging the first encounters with ‘stone-robots’, an autonomous swarm of robotic vehicles disguised as ancient standing stones, which the public perceived as ‘moving stones.’ By not anchoring participant expectations of the ‘stone’ agents with the term ‘robot’ and preserving the mysterious sense of encountering a ‘new species’, this study demonstrates that non-anthropomorphic robots can stimulate transcendental and contemplative interactions usually considered exclusive to humans and the ‘natural’ world. Drawing on principles from theater, we introduce how a ‘First Encounter Dramaturgy’ can guide the crafting of first meetings. We describe participants’ perceptions of their experiences of first encounters with a ‘new species’ of robots. Overall, our approach resulted in participants transitioning from curious anticipation to reflective engagement and enchantment, reduction in negative emotion, and an increase in and more diversity of positive emotion.