Products
In this section, I present several products developed for the economic and social valorization of knowledge in collaboration with other researchers and students. Includes the design, development, and testing of some tools for educational, health, and research purposes. The range encompasses:
Software & Hardware,
Multimedia applications, Videos,
Board games, Exergames, Activity books
Virtual reality environments.
Manuals with guidelines,
Psychological instruments
(e.g., questionnaires)
Datasets with research stimuli.
Creation of the Robot YOLO to foster CREATIVITY in children
Ph.D. thesis by Patrícia Alves-Oliveira.
GRANT REFERENCE:
SFRH/BD/110223/2015
Patrícia Alves Oliveira's doctoral thesis was outstanding, and in addition to several scientific publications from the empirical studies conducted under my supervision, Ana Paiva and Guy Hoffman, the software and hardware of the robot were published, along with guidelines for the design of robots co-constructed with children and grounded in theory.
CO-SUPERVISORS:
Ana Paiva,
Depart. Computer Science and Engineering, at “Instituto Superior Técnico” from the University of Lisbon
Guy Hoffman,
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
(Cornel University)
Creativity is one of the most important and desired nowadays’ abilities as most developed societies are shifting from an industrialized economy to a creative economy. Creativity can also be developed and improved.
YOLO stands for "Your Own Living Object". This robot is meant to be part of a new generation of technological toys designed to foster creativity in children during play.
The design of the YOLO Robot was developed, grounded on creativity research literature and on iterative co-design sessions with children. Throughout 3 years, a robot was created, fabricated, and develop to foster creative-driven behaviors in children. Guidelines for the design of robots for children-robot design are proposed.
Watch the presentation of Patrícia Alves-Oliveira at the Human-Robot Interaction Conference in 2021 (the paper received BEST PAPER AWARD in Design)
Both Hardware and Software of the robot were created and published in open access in scientific journals, and the robot was licensed under the CC Attribution 4.0 International. The Github platform includes product information and a wiki page at Github was created to help the user install, run, and improve the software that controls the YOLO robot.
- The installation guide directs users on how to install the current software version of YOLO
- The API documentation guides on how to produce programs using YOLO and improve the functioning of the current version of the software.
- Both Software and Hardware were published in peer-review articles
All the instructions on how to build this robot are available for the general community.
Many tutorial videos were developed and posted on Youtube by Patrícia Alves-Oliveira to facilitate its development. Examples: How to heat brass inserts (3:11); How to cut and drill a circuit board (5:42); How to hack a mouse (4:23); How to attach glowing fibers (3:26). See also her website.
YOLO was also tested in schools and summer camps to examine the effectiveness in fostering convergent and divergent thinking in children, two important forms of creative thought.
The video "The Medal" is a story created by a child during her playful interaction with robot YOLO (while participating in the research studies testing the efficacy of the robot in fostering creativity). The video was developed based on the child's story to give life to the creative story.
OTHER COLLABORATIONS THROUGH THE Ph.D. PROJECT
Margarida Antunes, Ana Bispo, Ankita Chandak, Albert Chu, Ian Cloutier, Rebecca Cooper, Matthew A. Cronin, Samuel Gomes, Priyanka Kompella, Beatriz Maia, Diogo Martins, Peter Moegenburg, Daniel Mota, Andreia Nóbrega, Sara Ibérico Nogueira, Daniela Nunes, André Pires, Isabel Valverde, Carla Xavier
"An Adventure at the Hospital": the surgery day
Creation of Preoperative Educational Materials for pediatric outpatient surgery
GRANT REFERENCE: SFRH/BD/61041/2009
Sara Fernandes completed her PhD with a grant from the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), focusing on developing tools to prepare children for surgery and evaluating their effectiveness.
Her work was exceptional, leading to the creation of various materials such as a board game, booklets, videos, and a multimedia game, developed under my supervision and that of Francisco Esteves. These materials underwent testing, and the findings were published in peer-reviewed articles.
Later, we created a version of the board game edited by “Ideias com História” to be shared with the Hospitals and the Community.
Software Multimedia
Board game & Booklet
Pedagogical Game:
"Uma aventura na Saúde Oral"
Creation of an educational board game for oral health promotion in children
Authors: Sara Fernandes, Luísa Bandeira Lopes, Francisco Esteves, & Patrícia Arriaga.
Printed and Edited by “Ideias com História”.
Board game & Booklet
"Uma aventura na Saúde Oral" translates to "An Adventure in Oral Health" in English. It is a pedagogical board game designed to educate players, likely children, about oral health. It is more suitable for children between 8 and 12 years old. It aims to make learning about dental hygiene and oral care engaging and interactive, incorporating elements of fun to maintain the interest of its young audience.
FLOWSENSE - Software for continuous recording of Emotions
“Flowsense” prototype software was developed for continuous recording of self-report emotions and physiological responses. It was customized for specific projects.
Collaboration with Octavian Postolache
CUBUS - Software to foster Creativity
CUBUS makes use of autonomous virtual agents that express emotions. The agents of CUBUS act as characters for the stories that children create, hinting for new storylines.
I must confess that my collaboration in this work was minimal and heavily anchored in the work of Patrícia Alves Oliveira, who was at the time a doctoral student under my supervision. As the work focused on emotions and creativity, I had the opportunity to discuss ideas for the game with Patrícia Alves-Oliveira and colleagues who were aiming to develop the application at that time, specifically in collaboration with GAIPS from INESC-ID/IST, through André Pires (INESC-ID/IST/UL), Ana Paiva (INESC-ID/IST/UL), and Carlos Martinho (INESC-ID/IST/UL) in the development of the digital tool “CUBUS” to foster children's creativity.
Tutorial video, in which we detail how CUBUS works
Conference presentation @ the 12th International Conference on Computational Creativity ICCC'21
A more detailed account of the development and findings can be found in the Publication folder
VIRTUAL Environments as tools for the treatment of AgoraPhobia
Design and testing of Virtual Reality Environments for the Treatment of Agoraphobia. The software was developed and tested by Tomaz Saraiva, as part of his Master's degree under my supervision and cosupervision of Pedro Gamito (ULHT). It was later used as a tool in psychotherapy to assist in the treatment of individuals with Agoraphobia.
Tomaz Saraiva
The virtual environments were set in the Lisbon Metro, on the yellow line, at the stations: Campo Grande, Cidade Universitária, Entre Campos, Campo Pequeno, Saldanha, and Picoas.
Materials: Manuals, Questionnaires, Dataset
Below, I list some manuals with guidelines, some of the Psychological instruments (e.g., questionnaires) that have been validated in publications, as well as information for datasets created with research stimuli.
Manuals
Manual do programa da intervenção de canto em grupo para seniores. / Manual for a Group singing intervention program for seniors (in Portuguese). Digital/online: https://doi.org/10.15847/CISCANTESAUDE
Lab manuals for efficient and high quality science in a happy and safe work environment. Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/bzcxg/
Questionnaires / Scales
Portuguese validation of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire short version in youth: European Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Preliminary validation of the European Portuguese version of the Robotic Social Attributes Scale (RoSAS). https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.311
Psychometric validation of the Portuguese version of the Measure of Anxiety in Selection Interviews. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12323
Portuguese validation of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire short version in youth: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2021.2011201
Psychometric Assessment of the "Child Surgery Worries Questionnaire" Among Portuguese children. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-017-9503-1
Estudo psicométrico de duas medidas no âmbito da agressão humana [Psychometric study of two measures in the context of human aggression].
https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/2161/1/2004_agressao.pdf
The New Ecological Paradigm scale to the European Portuguese language.
Structural Validity Evidence for the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale Across 15 Languages
Datasets
Film excerpts to induce emotions. https://doi.org/10.14417/lp.649
Stimuli can be found @ https://osf.io/bri3e/.
Did you know that....?
In addition to research, these stimuli were used to induce emotions in a music composer - Rodrigo Leão - which then gave rise to songs that were presented at the Calouste Gulbenkian Exhibition «Brain - wider than the sky» in 2019
Musical excerpts to induce emotions. https://doi.org/10.14417/lp.645.