Important Date
- Initial Submission (draft paper + video due):
December 2, 2024, 11:59 pm AoE - Acceptance Notification: January 3, 2025
- Camera Ready Paper and Video Presentations Due: January 12, 2025, 11:59 pm AoE
Video submissions will be showcased and award winners will be announced at the conference. We will also arrange a Student Design Challenge mingle. Students are invited to join the conference social event(s) happening in the evening, along with attending other presentations throughout the conference!
Student Design Challenge Summary
Consider submitting to the 2025 HRI Student Design Challenge (SDC)! The SDC is designed to provide student teams (of any level/discipline) with an opportunity to design and develop a human-robot interaction. The challenge requires student teams to submit a short written paper (1-4 pages including references) and a video presentation/demonstration detailing their work. After a review of all submissions, accepted projects will be invited for a showcase at the main HRI conference. These projects will also be included in the conference companion proceedings (listed with referenceable DOI in the ACM digital library/IEEE Xplore).
There are two main goals of the Student Design Challenge:
- To provide students with an enjoyable, hands-on introduction to the interdisciplinary world of HRI through a team-based design project.
- To engage and convene students of diverse backgrounds working in technical, cultural, design, humanist, or social science disciplines.
We encourage student teams to utilize whatever resources are at their disposal (submission constraints included below). We also suggest that the Student Design Competition might serve as an inspiration for group projects in university courses related to HRI, design, robotics and mechatronics, etc.
The Design Challenge
The conference theme for HRI 2025 is Robots for a Sustainable World. We are looking for submissions that build on this theme, with the human-robot interaction seriously considering at least one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the design of the robot and/or interaction. It is important to note that climate action is not the only type of sustainability; you can also consider designs focusing on concepts such as gender equality and the elimination of poverty. The HRI Robots for a Sustainable World: A Call for Action page for this conference has a concise introduction to the theme and a list of the UN SDGs. To address the prompt, you can choose a design where the application pertains to sustainability, or you can make design choices focused on more subtle sustainability impacts.
What constitutes an HRI design project?
We aren’t looking exclusively for perfectly polished work, fully implemented and fully functional prototypes, or any particular level of “doneness” – what constitutes a complete project is very approach- and team-dependent. If you will be working on the project during the timeline of this competition (rather than submitting something that had already been completed for, say, a spring 2024 course), then we suggest that you define your goals and criteria for “success” clearly from the outset so that you will know whether/if you’ve made enough progress to submit your work by the deadline. You’re welcome to submit a proposal related to a class project you’re working on. Just as for class projects that have proposals and final deliverables, your initial submission can discuss your plans and what you’ve done so far, but your final submission for the camera-ready deadline (and what you’ll present at the conference) needs to describe a completed design project.
Constraints – Robots
There are two main types of projects that can be completed: those using existing robot platforms and those building a prototype from scratch (some projects might fall in between, or combine, these two categories). For projects that use existing/commercial robot platforms, the novel design contribution might be a modification, a new kind of interaction, software-based, etc.
We are not looking for full fidelity prototypes nor any particular level of autonomy. We encourage you to play to your team’s strengths and/or engage with design and development work you find most interesting. It is totally fine for your robot to be lo-fi and/or “puppeted” during the demonstration.
Regardless of the choice you make, the important thing is for your team to highlight the originality and innovativeness of your project, whether that be through the design of the robot itself, the interaction, or some combination of the two!
Design Inspiration
Here are some questions to help you start your design process. We encourage you to focus on one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and one particular interaction context.
- In what setting(s) will the robot exist? Do you have enough knowledge to predict how the robot will function in this space?
- Who are the stakeholders?
- Are you imagining a robot supporting existing activities, or are you aiming to create a novel, standalone experience?
- What are the potential impacts of introducing a robot to the interaction you focus on? Are there risks to consider?
- In what ways are robots unsustainable? Are there ways to improve upon this?
Additionally, we encourage you to consider what skills your team members have that you may want to highlight. Below are some questions that can help you identify some of your team’s strengths. This isn’t an exhaustive list – – these are just some examples to try and demonstrate the breadth of talents that can be highlighted in this competition!
- Are you highlighting your design skills? (Showcase your background in graphic design, engineering design, interaction design, etc.)
- Does your design have visual appeal? (Showcase your artistry)
- Is your design based on a strong understanding of existing HRI work? (Showcase your knowledge of HRI literature, research experience)
- Are you demonstrating your coding experience? (Showcase your technical chops on the software side)
- Are you demonstrating your hardware experience? (Showcase your technical chops on the hardware side)
- Are you identifying an under-explored problem? (Showcase your eye for novelty)
- Is your system mechanically feasible? (Showcase your understanding of relevance and extensibility)
Examples – Previous Submissions
These are some examples of (1) successful Student Design Competition submissions from previous years and (2) non-SDC projects of a similar flavor that may serve as inspiration. You can also reference the HRI ’24: Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction to see all of last year’s accepted submissions!
- “Brush-E Bot”, a toothbrushing companion robot, from 2024’s SDC.
- “PosChair”, from 2024’s SDC.
- “Toaster Bot”, from 2023’s SDC.
- “Snoozle”, from 2017’s SDC.
- The cardboard based robot used in this HRI research on robot peers, as an example of DIY robot-building and programming.
- “ConeBot” – another take on everyday interactions, this time representing an interactive robot object that exists to do its own thing rather than supporting anything “functional” or “useful”.
- Dancing with Mikobot as an example of a prismatic, multi-faceted movement-based interaction (dance!) in HRI.
What Happens If My Team Is Accepted?
Video and in-person demonstrations and poster presentations from accepted teams will be showcased one day during the main conference. We strongly encourage you to bring your physical robot to the conference if it is feasible to do so! There will also be an SDC event to meet your fellow students and conference-goers. Participation in the SDC is also an opportunity to get to know the HRI conference, and you are encouraged to attend the presentations and networking events on the main conference program.
Award-worthy challenge submissions will receive a special recognition.
Challenge Logistics and Guidelines
Information
Procedure
Teams will work on designing, building, and documenting their projects ahead of the submission deadline. It is okay if some elements of the project are still being finalized at the time of submission, but everything must be complete by the camera ready deadline. Additionally, the maturity of the project will be taken into account by the judges who determine whether projects are accepted. We encourage teams to photograph and/or video record their design and development process for possible inclusion with their submissions.
Participants
Students at all stages of their curriculum, from pre-university to postgraduate (including PhD), and from any discipline, are eligible to submit. While not required, multidisciplinary teams are encouraged.
Team Size
Teams must have at least 2 members and may not exceed 5 members. Your team members can be spread out across the globe. If you don’t have the ability to put together a team but still want to participate, please contact the chairs. If we have multiple individuals express interest, we will do our best to provide those students the opportunity to form teams with each other.
Registration
At least one member of each team must register to attend the HRI 2025 conference in-person. That team member will be expected to present in-person on the day of the Student Design Challenge showcase. Other teammates are encouraged to also come in person, or participate virtually, as they are able.
Teams
There is no limit to the number of entries per institution (university, school, or organization). However, to foster participant diversity, we will prioritize inviting teams from many different institutions to showcase their work at the conference. Students are not permitted to join more than one team.
Expenses, Subsidies, and Scholarships
We are not yet sure whether the Student Design Competition will be able to financially support its participants. We encourage students to consider low-cost methods of prototyping – either by using existing university resources or using low-cost materials, including by recycling. Please check out the Student Volunteers page, which in return for volunteering has free registration for the entire conference (and is a great opportunity to network with other HRI students!). Also check out the HRI Pioneers Workshop for undergraduate students, which may also be able to offer additional support options and is another excellent HRI opportunity. We also encourage students to check if their home institution has scholarships for conference and/or educational opportunities.
Deliverables
Initial Submissions
Though you will have the opportunity to edit and revise before the camera-ready deadline, the initial submissions are what will determine whether your project is accepted!
Paper
Initial submissions should include a short (1-4 page) paper. This paper should use the same template as the main conference full paper submissions (IEEE Conference). This paper must include:
- Project title and authors (names, affiliations, and email addresses)
- An abstract of 100 words or fewer
- A brief description of the design context (technical and/or behavioral):
- Who is the human in the human-robot interaction?
- What are the key characteristics and details about the robot?
- What is the activity that the human and robot are engaged in?
- What UN SDG goal(s) have you chosen? How does your project address it/them?
- One or more representative images of the interactive robot, which can include:
- Hand-drawn sketches
- Digital renderings
- CAD models
- Photographs
Video
The draft video presentation should be no more than three minutes. It does not need to feature the final prototype, but it should showcase something that is close to your final design. We are looking for something that gives us a sense of who you are (as a team), what your team’s work is about, and what robot interaction you are designing. It’s also okay if your draft video is rough and unpolished – you will have the opportunity to edit, refine, and add content to your video for the camera-ready deadline.
Camera-Ready Submissions
Teams whose submissions are accepted will be asked to submit a final, 1-4 pages camera-ready version of their written short paper for inclusion in the ACM digital library and IEEE Xplore. Teams will also be asked to upload a video showcasing their robot artifacts/interactions for archive with their paper and for showcase at the main conference.
⚠️ Note ⚠️: a link to the submission portal will be added here once it goes live.
Conference Showcase
The conference will be an opportunity for your team to talk about your project and network with other people interested in HRI! All teams will be required to bring something physical to the conference to serve as a basis for discussion about their work. We understand that traveling with a robot/prototype can be difficult, so if necessary, your “something physical” can be a poster about your project. (You can also bring a poster in addition to your tangible project.) More details will be shared with accepted teams.
Contacts
Do you have any questions? Contact us!
Student Design Competition Chairs: Audrey Balaska (University of Melbourne), Sam Reig (UMass Lowell).