Made by Humans Supported by Robots

What is a robot? And how do you feel about robots preparing the food you buy at the grocery store? This project seeks out an opportunity to better understand how humans feel about robots and their growing use at industrial workplaces. Definitions of what a robot is are quite vague and we started bringing some of these into a conversation with a group of interviewees, talking about how participants perceive the way that their food products are made and how they feel about robots having more of a part in this. 

Based on these conversations we developed a set of food package labels as design probes. The labels explore different ways to inform consumers about how their food is made. Questions to our interviewees related to this set of labels generated a wide array of responses that have helped us understand better how people respond to such a new level of transparency about their products. 

As human-robot collaboration is becoming a growing reality on the factory floor we are exploring ways through which this changing reality of how we work can become part of a public awareness and conversation. 

Team

Kristian Kloeckl, Bianca Rabbie