Trash in Motion: Emergent Interactions with a Robotic Trashcan

The introduction of robots in public spaces raises many questions concerning emergent interactions with robots. In this paper, we use video analysis to study two robotic trashcans deployed in a busy city square. We focus on the movement-based practices that emerged between the robot, the robot operators, and the inhabitants of the square. These practices spanned ways of attracting the robot and disposing of trash, the robot ’asking’ for trash, ’demonstrations’ by those in the square, as well as passersby in the square navigating around and in coordination with the robots. In discussion, we document these ’spontaneous simple sequential systematics’ - interactions that were systematic (they had an order), sequential (they had parts that happened one at a time), simple (in that they could be understood and copied by an observer) and spontaneous (they could be produced with no prompting or training). Building on this we discuss how we might think of robotic motion as a design space, along with HCI contributions to urban robotics.