ENGR 10: Designing Across the Lifespan
Robot Design in the Context of Human Development
This reflection addresses
Area E GE Learning Outcome #1 Recognize the interrelation of the physiological,
social/cultural, and psychological factors on their development across the lifespan.
Guidelines
Deliverable: Each student in your robot design project group will prepare a 400 to 500 word
(about 1 page single spaced) reflection plus appropriate references. The reflection will link your
experience designing and building a robot to selected research and best practices that
examine humans experience of robots at different points in the lifespan. Each student will
upload a reflection to Canvas.
Overview: As you have been designing and building your robot, you have been considering the
particular tasks your robot must complete, but likely you have put little emphasis on design
features related to the interaction of the robot with its user. Understanding human development is
essential to best serving the user. Designers might want to consider issues that range from how
much a robot looks like a person, to the size and color of the control buttons, to how big the
letters are on the display, to how sound is used to engage the user. In addition, issues such as
safety or collaboration among users might come into the design specifications. Finally, designs
should consider a users cultural background, because culture affects, for example, language or
perceptions of how to interpret emotions or physical characteristics, which in turn influence the
way a user interacts with a robot. And the list goes on. The goal of this reflection is to examine
how human development affects our decisions as engineers. That is, how do we specify our
engineering designs so that we best serve the cognitive, social/emotional, and physical needs and
limitations of the users of our designs?
Assume that you have been asked to redesign your robot for multiple audiences. You are
asked to reflect on design considerations for two stages of life 1) childhood and 2) late
adulthood (65+ years old). Identify three aspects of a robot design that you would need to
consider to serve these two types of users. For each aspect you have selected, describe
Developmental issues you need to consider for each group (for example mobility or
motors skills or familiarity with technology)
How you would design your robot to address each issue
Your discussion must be based on information from reliable sources. We have posted a
number of articles about these two populations on Canvas (see DESIGNING ACROSS THE
LIFESPAN: Robot Readings).You may use these as a starting point, or find your own
sources.
The reflection should be single spaced, 1 inch margins all around and 12 point font with
references and in-text citations in correct APA format (APA format is discussed in the The
Everyday Writer that all students at SJSU should have purchased at the Bookstore or online). The
paper should be at least 400 words (not counting title or references) and is worth 5 laboratory
points.
2
The reflection paper format:
[A] Introduction (1 paragraph)
You will start with an introduction that: (a) presents the issue of designing to meet the
physical, emotional, social and/or cognitive needs of the user, (b) briefly introduces
the three design issues that will be presented (c) provides a succinct, but
comprehensive, overview of what the paper will do.
[B] Body
The main body of your paper will focus on presenting the three design issues (one
paragraph each) and how the robot would need to be adapted to the two types of users
(children and older adults). Do not just make this up, but instead cite reliable sources
such as the papers posted on the Canvas web site to support your reasoning as to why
and how to address specific developmental stages.
Avoid direct quotes Summarize everything in your own words. If you must quote,
you need a reference plus page number in text (e.g., Hogan et al, 2013, pg. 298) as
well as a full reference in the reference section at the end.
[C] Conclusion
In your conclusion, briefly summarize the key design issues that you have identified
for these two populations and additional knowledge, data, or other resources you might
need to best design for these two groups.
[D] References
Provide a separate page that lists in APA format the references for each article and
web-site cited in the paper
