Buzzo or Eureka - Robot that Makes Remote Participants Feel More Presence in Hybrid Discussions

ABSTRACT

Teleconferencing technology has been widely used in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. However, local and remote participants always have a poorer experience of hybrid discussion for various reasons in the leaderless group discussions with mixed online and offline members. In this paper, this phenomenon is explored through an early pilot study. We found problems with the lack of presence of remote participants in hybrid discussion sessions, as well as unclear information about the status of members. To solve such problems, we've designed a social robot called SNOTBOX. The bot indicates the participation status (marginalized or not) of the remote participant using "Buzzo" and the remote participant's desire to be heard through a "Eureka". We used both representations to attract the attention of local participants as a way to enhance the presence of remote participants in the conference. SNOTBOX is easy to produce and allows for DIY customization, and also supports multi-participant online discussions. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.