Robot Play for All: Developing Toys and Games for Disability

This book presents a comprehensive guide to the design of playing robots  and the related play experiences. Play is a natural activity for  building and improving abilities, and it reveals important particularly  for persons with disabilities. Many social, physical and cultural  factors may hinder children with disabilities from fully enjoying play  as their peers. Autonomous robots with specific characteristics can  enhance the ludic experience, having implications for the character of  the play and presenting opportunities related to autonomy and physical  movement, the very nature of robots. Their introduction into play thus  provides everybody, and in particular persons with disabilities, new  possibilities for developing abilities, improving general status,  participating in social contexts, as well as supporting professionals in  monitoring progress.
This book presents a framework for the design  of playful activities with robots, developed over 20 years’ experience  at AIRLab - POLIMI. Part 1 introduces the play concepts and  characteristics, and research results about play of children with  different kinds of impairments. Part 2 focuses on implementing robots  able to play. The design of playful activities is discussed, as well as  the necessary characteristics for them to be useful in both general play  and activities involving disability-related limitations. In Part 3, the  defined framework is used to analyze possibilities involving robots  available on the toy market, robots developed at research labs, and  robots to be developed in the next future. The aim of the book is to  give developers, caregivers, and users a set of methodological tools for  selecting, exploring, and designing inclusive play activities where  robots play a central role.