Animation

Walt Disney Animation came up with 12 principles of animation that they felt made good movement for their characters in their movies. A couple of these principles have been successfully applied to movement of robots for better interaction with people. But most of these principles have not been translated over to robots. This master would look at trying to apply principles of animation to human-robot interaction. Either principles that have not been applied before, or applying a principle differently or for a different "kind" of robot. The student will have to figure out how to create animations with a robot (e.g., Softbank's Nao) and designing and running empirical experiments with people to evaluate the animations.

Another alternative would be to see how using animation affects people opinion or interaction with a robot. For example, if the robot using animation principles is perceived as more friendly or more competent.