Playing with Telepresence Robots for Design Speculation

DIS'25 Workshops. Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.

July 6th, 2025

In this DIS 2025 workshop we will explore how telepresence robots can be used for playful design speculation, leveraging their inherent asymmetries to create engaging and innovative experiences. By focusing on playfulness instead of purely utilitarian applications this workshop seeks to transform the limitations of telepresence robots into opportunities for creative interaction.

REGISTRATION

To register to the workshop please go to https://dis.acm.org/2025/attending-workshops/ and email Juan Martinez Avila j.avila@nottingham.ac.uk to get a workshop registration code.

Participants can register on a rolling basis, but will need to fill registrations up by June 30th.

If you wish to submit a game idea please do so here.

We encourage participants with expertise with design playful experiences and games, embodied design ideation, telepresence robotics, remote collaboration and mixed reality to register to this workshop.

WORKSHOP GOALS

In this workshop participants will adapt physical games using embodied methods embodied design ideation methods, such as magic machines, embodied sketching, and soma bits, to create playful interventions with robots and to discover new ways to enhance telepresence technology. The focus is on embracing asymmetry to foster innovative, inclusive, and enjoyable interactions.

We will provide telepresence robots at the workshop's physical location, as well as in remote locations in the UK. We will also enact mock up telepresence robots by role playing and using tablets.

Participants of the workshop will be invited to publish their game ideas in our workshop archive as well as to be part of a full paper publication emerging from the results of this workshop.

SCHEDULE

GAME IDEAS

Examples of games to be re-imagined for telepresence are:

Participants are also encouraged to come up with original game ideas, and to reflect how they may balance asymmetries introduced by the telepresence robot's physical constraints to achieve playful activities and game tasks such as driving the robots and maneuvering through spaces, avoid or encourage (playful) collisions, finding objects and so on.