Does your school want to be part of Project EMAR!
Project EMAR
Project EMAR is an NSF funded project aimed to design and develop a community-based, social robot to help teens with stress. Did you know more than 1/3 of teens report experiencing more stress than they can manage? And this stress affects their health, their learning, and is highly correlated with depression. We want to help. We want to use technology to support the mental health of teens. We also want to do this in an ethical and participatory way.
Is your school interested in participating in Project EMAR? We consider our school partners key collaborators in this project. We are using a process called human-centered design and engage teens in every step of the design process.
Activities
We are a flexible team and have multiple activities that can happen with groups of 6-40 students either before, during or after the school day. We hope to engage a diverse range of students: all ages, grades, genders, ethnicities, interests and abilities are invited to participate.
Activities are led by a UW faculty researcher and a team of UW students, activities include robot interactions, design sessions, teen discussions, exploring robot design in virtual reality, or eventually hosting a robot in your school for a period of time to see how helpful it is.
Data collection, photos, and privacy
Although we are a research project we do not gather any research data that includes student names or contact information. We do ask students to anonymously share their demographic data (such as age, grade, gender and ethnicity) but this is optional. We do take photos and videos of the students’ interactions with the robots (to document our process and for use in social media. All of this is voluntary and we follow school policies regarding media releases. Any teen or parent can opt out of participation in photos, video or audio recordings.
Parental permission
In accordance with the Seattle Schools Research Review Committee, we will provide a parental permission letter to share with students, parents and families. This letter explains the activities we plan to do with your school community and reminds parents and teens that this experience is voluntary and students may opt in or out at any time.
Your school’s responsibilities and incentives
To participate in this project, we need a contact person from your school to help us coordinate a time and date, as well as communication with students and parents. So far we’ve visited many Seattle and Tacoma area schools and hope to create ongoing relationships with many different schools in the area.
If you are interested in having us visit your school, please fill out the school interest form and we’ll be in touch with you soon. If you have any questions, would like to meet in person, or are interested in participating, please contact Project EMAR at 206.616.2662 or emar@uw.edu. We’d love to work with you!
Principal Cooperation Form (coming soon…)