Interaction without programming: An effective use of pre-programmed reactions in a creation & expression contest

This work shows how robotics technology can contribute to making our society more creative and interactive. In a contest organized by the authors, we provided a controller, where several pre-programmed reactions are installed, to family-based participants who are familiar neither with robotics nor with computer programming. After three hours of training, they were encouraged to apply the reactive behaviors to create and express their own idea by combining a relevant sensor input and an actuator movement. People could easily apply those simple reactions in building their own interactive creatures without programming the controller.