15/10/2007

The Nakagawa Laboratory's Unique Approach: Designing Machines with a Heart

Product designer Shinobu Nakagawa (40) has created a series of unique robotic products. The robots he works on—creations such as block-like toy robots with variable built-in programs whose functionality changes according to shape in which they are stacked and snake-shaped rescue robots capable of gaining access to spaces too small for humans—are built around novel ideas that leave observers surprised at his imaginative approach. We asked Mr. Nakagawa, the subject of much attention in today's robot business, about robot design.


The relationship between people and their machines should be one of mutual communication

After studying the fundamentals of design at Musashino Art University and designing numerous products at a major appliance manufacturer, Mr. Nakagawa turned his back on a bright future as a company employee at the age of 36 and took up a new career as an instructor at Kobe Design University's School of Design. "My father, whom I respect enormously, was a middle school teacher, so at the beginning I had decided that at some point I would become a teacher,�h he told us as he explained how he came to teach product design on the university level. "For me, my life is going according to plan."

It was the idea of designing machines with a heart that lured him into robot research from the field of household appliances where he had been working. "For humans and machines to have good relationships, it's important for us to be able to empathize with machines. When we speak to them and communicate our feelings, machines too should show some sort of reaction. The relationship between people and things in the 21st century should be built on this type of mutual communication. I see robots as the symbols of this relationship."

Although the word "robot" tends to bring to mind images of humanoids like "C-3PO from Star Wars", Mr. Nakagawa's robot design efforts are an extension of his focus on what new form communication between people and machines might take. "It may be the wall of a room that can communicate, or it may be a computer like HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey," he says, urging caution at the preconceptions that come with the word "robot." "A better expression might be intelligent devices capable of communicating with people by means of movements, sound, and light in a manner that is not one-way."

Mr. Nakagawa's design philosophy includes a warning for current robot developers.

"I think there are a large number of manufacturing-oriented developers for whom the development of robots is itself the goal. Unless you frame your inquiry around the question of why the device must be a robot, meaningful robot development is not possible." He has targeted the area of robotics for research in order to search for methods for enabling people and machines to communicate their emotions to one another. "Right now, my students and I are working on a remote control device based on the concept of touch—a remote control that communicates current conditions in a sensory manner by changing its shape when gripped. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but I think this is an example of a robotic means of communication."


His role is to train robot development team leaders who will be active 10 years from now

The motto of the Nakagawa Laboratory is empowering students to practice adaptable product design once they enter society by giving them as practical a research theme as possible and having them see it through to the end. For this reason, Mr. Nakagawa has been actively involved in collaborative industry-academia projects where corporations and universities work together to develop product prototypes.
"My role is training the young researchers who will carry the robotics industry into the future," Mr. Nakagawa says. "I think the most important thing is giving them the power to put their skills into practice so that once they have taken jobs in the corporate world ten years from now they can make a contribution as team leaders in robot development."

Although just four years have passed since he began teaching at the University, Mr. Nakagawa's job performance has been impressive. During that time he has completed six robot projects with students, a number that swells to more than ten other industrial products are included. Each creation incorporates a novel, admiration-inspiring idea into some aspect of its design and assimilates the students' freewheeling thinking to a remarkable degree. Attesting to the high quality of those designs are prizes and awards including the Silver and Bronze Prizes at the 2006 International Design Convention and the Good Design Hyogo Award.

Both the large number of projects his laboratory pursues and the scope of Mr. Nakagawa's remarkable enthusiasm for his craft are apparent as he notes, "there aren't enough collaborative projects pursued by industry and academia in Hyogo Prefecture alone for our students, so we became a RooBO member when we made an offer to Robot Laboratory." After he gave a presentation describing the Nakagawa Laboratory's past projects and research directions during one of Robot Laboratory's regular RooBO meetings, RayTron immediately made a proposal, and the Chapit communication robot became the group's first project of its kind. The Nakagawa Laboratory moved its workshop to the Osaka University of Arts in 2007 and expects to pursue more collaborative projects between industry and academia under the aegis of Robot Laboratory.

Although his career as a robot designer has just begun, Mr. Nakagawa is a creator who inspires excitement about how his work will broaden his chosen field of endeavor in the future. With its group of talented students, his university laboratory is as though a toy box stuffed with unfinished robots. Having inspired them to speculate as to what talented robots it will produce next, the Nakagawa Laboratory seems unlikely to let observers shift their attention elsewhere for some time to come.



Shinobu Nakagawa
Associate Professor, Department of Design
Osaka University of Arts

Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1967, Mr. Nakagawa joined Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., in 1990 after graduating from the Department of Science of Design at Musashino Art University�fs College of Art and Design. He helped design numerous products, including outdoor suppliers, video cameras, and vacuum cleaners, before leaving the company in 2003 to accept a teaching position at Kobe Design University, where he has been the recipient of numerous awards for his active involvement in collaborative product design projects involving industry and academia. In 2007 he accepted an associate professorship at the Department of Design at Osaka University of Arts.