6-13-26: The Robot in Our Path: How do public area robots impact sidewalks and how can we design them to be more socially appropriate?

Speakers: Nikolas Martelaro, Sarah Fox

Sidewalk robots are becoming increasingly common worldwide, yet their presence on public walkways poses real challenges for pedestrians. Our team has been studying these deployments in Pittsburgh, documenting the difficulties they create and exploring how to redesign public area robots so they interact more appropriately with the people around them. In this talk, we will share our observations from Pittsburgh, with particular attention to the impact on people with disabilities. We will then discuss how direct community engagement in the design process can lead to better interactions between public area robots and the public they share sidewalks with. Ideally our work seeks to inform how robots are designed so that they enhance rather than impede shared spaces.

Join us for our upcoming Community Lecture! This will be online only. Please register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/i7yweAqvSBCUTOHcsJdm1w

  • When: Saturday, June 13th from 12:00-1:30 PM
  • Where: Zoom AND streaming on YouTube
  • Meeting Accessibility:
    • There will be sign language interpreters and closed captioning available on Zoom. 
    • Chat will be disabled on Zoom during the lecture to better serve people using screen readers. Participants will still be able to message the hosts.
    • When it comes time for the Q&A, people may ask by messaging in the chat so the host can read it out loud or by raising their hand on Zoom so the host can call on them to ask by voice or by ASL.

If anyone has any other access needs please contact accessmobpittsburgh@gmail.com as soon as possible, but no later than June 8th.

Speaker Biographies:

Nik Martelaro is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, where his research augments designers’ capabilities to tackle society’s toughest problems through a blend of human creativity and computation. His work spans hardware, software, and interaction design, with a particular focus on human-robot interaction. He has experience exploring how to make autonomous systems work better for people by engaging them directly in the design process.

Sarah Fox is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human Computer Interaction Institute, where she directs the Tech Solidarity Lab. Her work examines the impacts of AI and automation on essential work sectors and public facing technologies. She has a specific focus on developing systems that center people’s needs and expertise. Her work is grounded in rich design practices that invite people to work with designers to create more preferred futures.

Funding for this lecture comes from a grant from the Opportunity Fund.