PopTech : Blog : Interview: Kacie Kinzer's Tweenbot toolkit

Interview: Kacie Kinzer's Tweenbot toolkit

Emily Spivack ( Bio / Posts ) | Thursday, May 05, 2011 UTC

Kacie Kinzer introduced Sam at PopTech 2009. Sam is what Kinzer calls a Tweenbot, a small, human-dependent robot equipped only with “cuteness and a flag that says ‘help me’” and its end destination. Kinzer was blown away by how ready to lend a hand New Yorkers were to get Sam where he needed to go. She had no idea that this boxy 'bot would elicit such human reactions of empathy and kindness in a place as harried and chaotic as New York.

Now it's time to spread the love beyond NYC. Kinzer has decided to take her robots on the road - and in order to do so, she's recently started a Kickstarter campaign to create and distribute DIY Tweenbot kits.

We checked in with Kinzer to learn about what she's been up to since she spoke at PopTech and her plans for Tweenbot worldwide domination.

PopTech: It's been a while! What have you been up to these days?
Kacie Kinzer: For the past few months, I’ve been working on designing the DIY Tweenbot kit that makes it possible for people of all ages to create their own Tweenbot. I’m really excited to get the Kit in the hands of others and am using Kickstarter to fund it.

Also, I am currently building Tweenbots like crazy for the MoMA! They are going to be in the Talk to Me exhibition opening in July, and I’ve been working with curators there to figure out how a Tweenbot can traverse the Museum with the help of strangers.

Finally, I’m working on research with Dan Ariely (PopTech 2009, 2010) at Duke. My interests as a designer have been moving more and more in the direction of thinking about human behavior, and I’ve decided to push this in a more rigorous direction with the help of Dan.

You've been busy. Why did you decide to make Tweenbot kits?
After I took my first Tweenbot, Sam, out to Washington Square Park a couple years ago and witnessed all of the interactions he had, I walked back to my apartment and realized I had this sense of elation and a crazy grin on my face that would not go away. I think I was responding to this feeling that the Tweenbots had somehow--in their own small way--managed to reveal something that was really affirming and playful about our humanity. I wanted to be able to share this experience of creating something and sending it out into the world--where it has an impact-- with everyone.

So, I decided to make a kit that would make it possible for everyone to create and customize a Tweenbot of their own. The Kit is easy and fun to build, and will be accompanied by a web component that provides some pretty awesome tools to help people document and track their Tweenbot’s journey. As a technologist and designer, this combination of the physical Tweenbot and the digital tools that accompany it is really exciting to me. I’ve never seen anything like what I hope to make.

How has this project evolved since you presented at PopTech?
I think the direction of the project has evolved more toward thinking about Tweenbots for education. Making the Tweenbots Kit and funding it through Kickstarter is the first step in the evolution of the Tweenbots to become a platform that encourages people of all ages to be curious and playful, and use their creativity to come up with something that they feel the Tweenbots should do or reveal in the world.

What do you hope to achieve by unleashing Tweenbots all over the world?
One day soon I hope to be able to sit down in front of my computer and watch a video that someone on another continent has posted about his Tweenbot, Massoud, making his way across a marketplace. Or as one Tweenbot Kickstarter backer suggested for his own Tweenbot, I might get to see how a cardboard bot makes it from “Portugal to Korea without air travel.” Or perhaps a 6th grader will find a way to get her Tweenbot to outer space through the hands of an astronaut. The Tweenbots are about the possibilities between robot and human, and the goal with the Kit is to make it possible for other people to define what those are while having fun creating something.

What have you learned about human/robot interactions and relationships since you sent Sam on his first adventure in Washington Square Park a few years ago?
I think there is tremendous potential for emotional and empathetic connection between humans and robots (or robot characters, as the Tweenbots are). The Tweenbots are unique because typical notions of robots are that they exist to perform work for, or help, humans. The tweenbots invert this relationship-- they are human-dependent, and their lack of sophistication is in part what makes it so easy to see ourselves in them and to bring them to life.

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