Robot Play for All: Developing Toys and Games for Disability

This book presents a comprehensive guide to the design of playing robots and the related play experiences. Play is a natural activity for building and improving abilities, and it reveals important particularly for persons with disabilities. Many social, physical and cultural factors may hinder children with disabilities from fully enjoying play as their peers. Autonomous robots with specific characteristics can enhance the ludic experience, having implications for the character of the play and presenting opportunities related to autonomy and physical movement, the very nature of robots. Their introduction into play thus provides everybody, and in particular persons with disabilities, new possibilities for developing abilities, improving general status, participating in social contexts, as well as supporting professionals in monitoring progress.

This book presents a framework for the design of playful activities with robots, developed over 20 years’ experience at AIRLab - POLIMI. Part 1 introduces the play concepts and characteristics, and research results about play of children with different kinds of impairments. Part 2 focuses on implementing robots able to play. The design of playful activities is discussed, as well as the necessary characteristics for them to be useful in both general play and activities involving disability-related limitations. In Part 3, the defined framework is used to analyze possibilities involving robots available on the toy market, robots developed at research labs, and robots to be developed in the next future. The aim of the book is to give developers, caregivers, and users a set of methodological tools for selecting, exploring, and designing inclusive play activities where robots play a central role.

本書提供了設計遊戲機器人和相關遊戲體驗的全面指南。遊戲是一種自然的活動，可以建立和提高能力，對於殘障人士尤其重要。許多社會、身體和文化因素可能阻礙殘障兒童像同齡人一樣充分享受遊戲。具有特定特徵的自主機器人可以增強遊戲體驗，對遊戲的性質和自主性以及身體運動提供機會，這正是機器人的本質。它們的引入為每個人，尤其是殘障人士，提供了發展能力、改善整體狀態、參與社會環境以及支持專業人員監測進展的新可能性。

本書提出了在AIRLab - POLIMI 20年經驗基礎上開發的遊戲機器人活動設計框架。第一部分介紹了遊戲的概念和特點，以及關於不同類型殘障兒童遊戲的研究結果。第二部分重點介紹了能夠進行遊戲的機器人的實現。討論了遊戲活動的設計，以及它們在一般遊戲和涉及與殘障相關的限制的活動中必要的特點。在第三部分中，使用定義的框架分析了玩具市場上可用的機器人、研究實驗室開發的機器人以及未來即將開發的機器人的可能性。本書的目的是為開發人員、照顧者和使用者提供一套方法論工具，以選擇、探索和設計機器人在其中扮演核心角色的包容性遊戲活動。

Andrea Bonarini is a full professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, teaching courses about Robotics and AI at the Industrial and Information Engineering School and at the Design School. He is also in charge of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab. Over the course of 25 years, he has developed, in conjunction with his students, more than 40 different playing robots, many of which are oriented towards people with disabilities, the latter created as part of a program that he launched through the Playbot4All initiative. His research interests include autonomous robotic agent design, human-robot interaction, robot-based entertainment, affective computing, intelligent data interpretation, reinforcementmachine learning, and fuzzy systems.

Serenella Besio is a full Professor in Didactic and Special Education at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She teaches courses on disability and educational topics. She has coordinated national and international projects on the use of play, and playing robots, for rehabilitation, including the EU COST network "LUDI - play for children with disabilities". Her main research topics include assistive technologies and the promotion of play rights for children with disabilities.

Andrea Bonarini是意大利米蘭理工大學的全職教授，他在工業與信息工程學院和設計學院教授關於機器人和人工智能的課程。他還負責人工智能和機器人實驗室。在過去的25年中，他與學生們共同開發了40多種不同的玩具機器人，其中許多面向殘障人士，這些機器人是他通過Playbot4All計劃推出的一部分。他的研究興趣包括自主機器人代理設計、人機交互、基於機器人的娛樂、情感計算、智能數據解釋、強化機器學習和模糊系統。

Serenella Besio是意大利貝加莫大學的特殊教育教學和教育學全職教授。她教授有關殘疾和教育主題的課程。她協調了國內外關於使用遊戲和玩具機器人進行康復的項目，包括歐盟COST網絡“LUDI-為殘疾兒童玩樂”。她的主要研究領域包括輔助技術和促進殘疾兒童遊戲權利。