Course Schedule

The following table contains the course and lab meeting schedule with links to the readings. For course meetings where there is a required reading assignment, the following items are due by 12:00pm (noon) the day of class:


Most of the links I've provided for the readings will direct you to the official online proceedings or journal sites. If you're not able to view the entire paper or cannot download the PDF, I'd recommend getting on the KU VPN or searching for the paper on Google Scholar.


Week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Friday
1 Aug 24 · LEEP2 2420 Aug 25 Aug 26 · LEEP2 2420 Aug 28 · Eaton 2002
Lecture: Introduction to HRI & the course Discussion: Robot Embodiment
Bainbridge et al. (2011)
Lab 1: Robot Programming 1 — Hello Nao
2 Aug 31 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 1 Sep 2 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 4 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Verbal Behavior: Feedback
Wang et al. (2026)
Discussion: Verbal Behavior: Expressivity and Vulnerability
Martelaro et al. (2016)
Lab 2: Robot Programming 2 — Wizard of Oz
3 Sep 7 Sep 8 Sep 9 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 11 · Eaton 2002
No Class: Labor Day Discussion: Nonverbal Behavior: Responsive Gestures
Rifinski et al. (2021)
Lab 3: LLM-Based Human-Robot Dialogue
4 Sep 14 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 15 Sep 16 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 18 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Nonverbal Behavior: Gaze
Gillet et al. (2021)
Discussion: Social Dynamics: Trust
Manor et al. (2026)
Lab 4: HRI Study Design
Hoffman and Zhao (2020)
5 Sep 21 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 22 Sep 23 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 25 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Social Dynamics: Attachment
Zhao (2026)
Discussion: Social Dynamics: Repairing Conflict
Jung et al. (2015)
Project: Project Team Formation
Submit 1-3 project pitches in this SharePoint document
6 Sep 28 · LEEP2 2420 Sep 29 Sep 30 · Eaton 2002 Oct 2 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Design: Engaging Strangers
Guo et al. (2026)
Due: Draft Project Proposal Project: Feedback on Initial Project Proposals #1 Project: Feedback on Initial Project Proposals #2
7 Oct 5 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 6 Oct 7 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 9 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Design: Robot-Assisted Feeding
Nanavati et al. (2023)
Due: Finalized Project Proposal Discussion: Robot Behavior Generation: Motion Legibility
Dragan et al. (2013)
Lab 5: Quantitative Data Analysis
8 Oct 12 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 13 Oct 14 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 16 · Eaton 2002
Project: Initial Idea Presentations Discussion: Robot Behavior Generation: Expressive Motion Generation
Hielscher et al. (2026)
Lab 5 (cont.): Quantitative Data Analysis
9 Oct 19 Oct 20 Oct 21 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 23 · Eaton 2002
No Class: Fall Break Due: Project Deliverables #1 Discussion: Responding to Human Feedback: Instructing Robots Using Images
Mahadevan et al. (2025)
Lab 6: Qualitative Data Analysis
10 Oct 26 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 27 Oct 28 · LEEP2 2420 Oct 30 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Responding to Human Feedback: Learning Human Preferences
Candon et al. (2026)
Discussion: Perceived Mental Capacities: Children's Perceptions of Robots
Kahn et al. (2012)
Lab 6 (cont.): Qualitative Data Analysis
11 Nov 2 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 3 Nov 4 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 6 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Perceived Mental Capacities: Blame Judgments for Robots
Komatsu et al. (2021)
Due: Project Deliverables #2 Project: Project Experiment Piloting #1 Project: Project Experiment Piloting #2
12 Nov 9 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 10 Nov 11 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 13 · Eaton 2002
Discussion: Robot Ethics: Ethics of Human-Robot Relationships
de Graaf (2016)
Discussion: Robot Ethics: Labor Impact of Robots
Lee et al. (2025)
Project: Project Work Time
13 Nov 16 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 17 Nov 18 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 20 · Eaton 2002
Project: Midway Presentations Discussion: Robots in the “Wild”: Robot Abuse
Brščić et al. (2015)
Project: Project Work Time
14 Nov 23 · LEEP2 2420 Nov 24 Nov 25 Nov 27
Discussion: Robots in the “Wild”: Robots in Eldercare Facilities
Hu & Šabanović (2026)
No Class: Thanksgiving Break No Class: Thanksgiving Break
15 Nov 30 · Eaton 2002 Dec 1 Dec 2 · Eaton 2002 Dec 4 · Eaton 2002
Project: Project Work Time Project: Project Work Time Project: Project Work Time
16 Dec 7 · LEEP2 2420 Dec 8 Dec 9 · LEEP2 2420
Project: Final Project Presentations Project: Final Project Presentations
17 Finals Week Dec 15 Dec 16
Due: Project Final Report, Teaming Survey, and Data Sharing


Reading References

The following table includes the links to the course readings as well as their full bibliographic references.

Short Reference Bibliographic Reference
Bainbridge et al. (2011) Bainbridge, W. A., Hart, J. W., Kim, E. S., & Scassellati, B. (2011). The benefits of interactions with physically present robots over video-displayed agents. International Journal of Social Robotics, 3(1), 41-52.
Brščić et al. (2015) Brščić, D., Kidokoro, H., Suehiro, Y., & Kanda, T. (2015, March). Escaping from children's abuse of social robots. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 59-66).
Candon et al. (2026) Candon, K., Zhang, Q., Lew, A., Claure, H., Qian, L., Quarles, A., ... & Vázquez, M. (2026, March). Learning human preferences over a human-robot collaboration based on explicit and implicit human feedback. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 1040-1049).
Dragan et al. (2013) Dragan, A. D., Lee, K. C., & Srinivasa, S. S. (2013, March). Legibility and predictability of robot motion. In Proceedings of the 2013 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (pp. 301-308). IEEE.
Gillet et al. (2021) Gillet, S., Cumbal, R., Pereira, A., Lopes, J., Engwall, O., & Leite, I. (2021, March). Robot gaze can mediate participation imbalance in groups with different skill levels. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 303-311).
de Graaf (2016) De Graaf, M. M. (2016). An ethical evaluation of human–robot relationships. International Journal of Social Robotics, 8(4), 589-598.
Guo et al. (2026) Guo, S. G., Yu, J. J., Niu, W., Gao, Y., Hoffman, G., Leshed, G., & Green, K. E. (2026). Robot-Mediated Mutual Gaze: How a Mobile Robot with Actuated Mirrors Facilitates Encounters between Strangers. In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 275-284).
Hielscher et al. (2026) Hielscher, T., Scaparro, F., & Arras, K. O. (2026, March). Context-Aware Generation and Modulation of Expressive Motion Behavior using Multimodal Foundation Models. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 438-446).
Hoffman and Zhao (2020) Hoffman, G., & Zhao, X. (2020). A primer for conducting experiments in human-robot interaction. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), 10(1), 1-31.
Hu & Šabanović (2026) Hu, N., & Šabanović, S. (2026, March). Generative encounters with Robin: Design through adaptation and appropriation of a social robot in four eldercare facilities. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 306-315).
Jung et al. (2015) Jung, M. F., Martelaro, N., & Hinds, P. J. (2015, March). Using robots to moderate team conflict: the case of repairing violations. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 229-236).
Kahn et al. (2012) Kahn Jr, P. H., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Freier, N. G., Severson, R. L., Gill, B. T., ... & Shen, S. (2012). “Robovie, you’ll have to go into the closet now”: Children’s social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot. Developmental Psychology, 48(2), 303.
Komatsu et al. (2021) Komatsu, T., Malle, B. F., & Scheutz, M. (2021, March). Blaming the reluctant robot: Parallel blame judgments for robots in moral dilemmas across US and Japan. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 63-72).
Lee et al. (2025) Lee, H. R., Fox, S., Cheon, E., & Shorey, S. (2025, March). Minding the stop-gap: Attending to the “temporary,” unplanned, and added labor of human-robot collaboration in context. In Proceedings of the 2025 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (pp. 34-44). IEEE.
Mahadevan et al. (2025) Mahadevan, K., Lewis, B., Li, J., Mutlu, B., Tang, A., & Grossman, T. (2025, March). Imageinthat: Manipulating images to convey user instructions to robots. In Proceedings of the 2025 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (pp. 757-766). IEEE.
Manor et al. (2026) Manor, A., Cohen, D., Keidar, Z., Parush, A., & Erel, H. (2026, March). Cognitive trust in HRI: “Pay Attention to Me and I’ll Trust You Even if You are Wrong”. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 776-784).
Martelaro et al. (2016) Martelaro, N., Nneji, V. C., Ju, W., & Hinds, P. (2016, March). Tell me more: Designing HRI to encourage more trust, disclosure, and companionship. In Proceedings of the 2016 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (pp. 181-188). IEEE.
Nanavati et al. (2023) Nanavati, A., Alves-Oliveira, P., Schrenk, T., Gordon, E. K., Cakmak, M., & Srinivasa, S. S. (2023, March). Design principles for robot-assisted feeding in social contexts. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 24-33).
Rifinski et al. (2021) Rifinski, D., Erel, H., Feiner, A., Hoffman, G., & Zuckerman, O. (2021). Human-human-robot interaction: robotic object’s responsive gestures improve interpersonal evaluation in human interaction. Human–Computer Interaction, 36(4), 333-359.
Wang et al. (2026) Wang, J., Wang, C., Soltani Zarrin, R., & Erickson, Z. (2026, March). Bidirectional human-robot communication for physical human-robot interaction. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 572-580).
Zhao (2026) Zhao, Z. (2026, March). Expensive, limited, and still here: The paradox of weak robots in family homes. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 844-853).