RoboGraphics: Dynamic Tactile Graphics Powered by Mobile Robots

RoboGraphics explores the design of interactive tactile graphics by combining a touch screen tablet, static tactile overlays, and small mobile robots. These three components work together to create a shape-changing, interactive display: the touch screen accepts user input and displays control codes for the mobile robots, the static tactile overlay represents static portions of the graphic, and the robots move across the screen to represent moving and interactive elements. RoboGraphics can be used to display graphics, animations, or applications.

Our RoboGraphics prototype supports a number of different applications that demonstrate the types of interactions supported by this design:

  • Data graphics. RoboGraphics can be used to represent charts and graphs. The static tactile overlays can be used to provide a frame of reference, while the mobile robots can reconfigure themselves to show a particular dataset.
  • Audio-tactile stories. RoboGraphics can be used to play back narrative content such as a storybook or educational animation. The mobile robots can be used to represent characters in the story or can direct the user's attention to a specific location.
  • Interactive applications. A set of robots can be used to represent particular shapes, such as letters, numbers, or chemical diagrams. The user can browse through a set of items to learn about each one and can interact with the application to complete a quiz or other activity.
A piece of cardboard with cutouts is placed atop a touch screen display as a tactile overlay. There are six circular cutouts on the left-hand side. These serve as buttons and allow the user to issue commands to the touch screen display. There is a large rectangular cutout that serves as a graph display area. There are small rectangular cutouts to the left and right of the graph display area that serve as axes markers. Four robots are placed inside the overlay and form the maxima of a bar chart with four bars.
The Tactile Bar Chart that allows a user to explore a series of bar charts. The user can page between different charts to compare them.
A piece of cardboard with cutouts is placed atop a touch screen display as a tactile overlay. There are three circular cutouts at the bottom. These serve as buttons and allow the user to issue commands to the touch screen display. There are two large rectanglar cutouts that mark two lanes of a race track. There are also four cutouts above the race track: a mountain, a house, a carrot, and tree. Two robots are placed inside the two lanes of the trace track. The robots movement along the race track demonstrates the story of the tortoise and the hare.
The Audio-Tactile Story of the Tortoise and the Hare with sound and tactile movement.
A piece of cardboard with cutouts is placed atop a touch screen display as a tactile overlay. There is one circular cutout in the center. It serve as a clock face. There are twelve small rectangualr cutouts surrounding the clock face for each of the hours in a day. Two robots are placed inside the clock face, one for the hour hand and one for the minute hand. The robots move along the edge of the clock face to demonstrate different times of the day as displayed on a clock.
The Tactile Analog Clock that supports learning how to tell time.
Contributors:

Darren Guinness, Annika Muehlbradt, and Shaun Kane

Publication:

ASSETS'19: ACM SIGACCESS

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