I have been building hobby robots for quite a while now, and have discovered in the last couple of years that the way the robot looks has a major impact not only on how others see the robot, but how I feel about it and how much I enjoy working on it. The more I can personify the robot, the more I "like" it. My early robots were very utilitarian:
Even more recently I have been attracted to the idea of adding emotion/ personality to a robot to further the anthropomorphizing that seems to be taking place. I have done some studying of how to use the limited resources available to a hobby robot to express emotion and personality:
My whole point behind that extended introduction was to foster some discussion of robot aesthetics and personality. What have you done to make your robots more attractive? Is anyone in the group doing any research/building along these lines? Any ideas or comments to share?