TY - GEN
T1 - Margin
T2 - ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2026
AU - Duan, Yuhan
AU - Han, Yuxi
AU - Liu, Jiayu
AU - Yan, Ran
AU - Wu, Jingyu
AU - Ren, Xipei
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2026/6/12
Y1 - 2026/6/12
N2 - Dark phobia is a pervasive issue in early childhood, affecting both child development and family life. While the HCI field has explored exposure therapies via technologies such as Virtual Reality, there remains a lack of lightweight in-situ interventions tailored for domestic dark environments. To address this, we present Margin, a set of lightweight robots informed by principles of Ambient Intelligence and Embodied Interaction to support therapeutic play in domestic dark environments. The system comprises a guide robot, Heechu, integrating a large language model (LLM) for adaptive dialogue, and four ambient intervention robots operating in a coordinated multi-robot architecture. Through multisensory storytelling and interaction, Margin mediates children's engagement with dark spaces by reframing fear-related stimuli as approachable elements. This interaction paradigm enables children to actively participate in shaping their surroundings, supporting cognitive reframing of fear within a structured interactive context.
AB - Dark phobia is a pervasive issue in early childhood, affecting both child development and family life. While the HCI field has explored exposure therapies via technologies such as Virtual Reality, there remains a lack of lightweight in-situ interventions tailored for domestic dark environments. To address this, we present Margin, a set of lightweight robots informed by principles of Ambient Intelligence and Embodied Interaction to support therapeutic play in domestic dark environments. The system comprises a guide robot, Heechu, integrating a large language model (LLM) for adaptive dialogue, and four ambient intervention robots operating in a coordinated multi-robot architecture. Through multisensory storytelling and interaction, Margin mediates children's engagement with dark spaces by reframing fear-related stimuli as approachable elements. This interaction paradigm enables children to actively participate in shaping their surroundings, supporting cognitive reframing of fear within a structured interactive context.
KW - Child-robot interaction
KW - Embodied Interaction
KW - Fear of darkness
KW - Play-based intervention
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105042627324
U2 - 10.1145/3802974.3808040
DO - 10.1145/3802974.3808040
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105042627324
T3 - DIS 2026 - Companion Proceedngs of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
SP - 633
EP - 637
BT - DIS 2026 - Companion Proceedngs of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
A2 - Yen, Ching Chiuan
A2 - Lee, Jung-Joo
A2 - Do, Ellen Yi-Luen
A2 - Zheng, Clement
A2 - Yoo, Daisy
A2 - Tang, Tony
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Y2 - 13 June 2026 through 17 June 2026
ER -