Designing a Socially Interactive Robotic Origami Canopy for Augmenting Art Viewing Experiences

Museums are seeing less visitors, especially young ones, who lack cultural education as a result. How do we find new ways of getting them to engage with the educational experience of existing artworks in museums? Our answer: Shutterbot, a robotic canopy that uses its origami form, socially expressive movement, and space-making capability to create a dynamic, immersive space that alters people's art-viewing experience. This short paper traces the Research through Design (RtD) trajectory to present the evolution of our design and the results of our user studies exploring people's perception of Shutterbot, the artwork within, and the space it creates.