Exploring cultural imaginaries of robots with children with brittle bone disease: a participatory design study

Editorial reading guide · Collaboration

If a robot entered our home, which relationships and routines should its design protect or support?

Invites children with a rare condition and their families to explore what robots could mean in daily life. Stories, discussion, and openly teleoperated MiRo encounters supported imagining assistance and communication without pretending the robot already had autonomous intelligence. Early findings favored helping human relationships and routines rather than obstructing them.

Study context

Four children with brittle bone disease and their families in an ongoing series of remote and home-based participatory design activities

Age / stage: Children 11–15 years with osteogenesis imperfecta, with siblings and parents

Read with three questions

1. How did storytelling and transparent teleoperation let children and families question possible robot roles?
2. Which early ideas involved helping people communicate or reducing tasks, rather than replacing people?
3. What can preliminary findings from the first activities support, and what remains unknown until the wider project is completed?

Keep the limits in view

The report presents interim analysis from the initial activities of an ongoing small project, not a tested product or complete effectiveness study. Recruitment, access, language, and family participation affect whose experiences are represented. No clinical, independence, or caregiver-burden benefit was measured, and the authors did not claim to be developing a finished robot.