Ting-Han Lin

CS PhD student at UChicago

University of Chicago

Human-Robot Interaction Lab

Actuated Experience Lab

Biography

Hello! My name is Ting-Han Lin, and I go by Timmy. I am a computer science PhD student advised by Prof. Sarah Sebo at the University of Chicago. I received both M.S. in Computer Science and B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2022 (4-year Joint BA/MS in Computer Science). During my master’s and undergrad, I was advised by Prof. Sarah Sebo and Prof. Ken Nakagaki. Before coming to the United States for college, I was born and raised in Taiwan.

My research interest lies in the intersection of human-robot interaction and human-computer interaction. Specifically, I focus on designing user-adaptive social robots. As social robots become more prevalent, they will need to adapt to multiple users' preferences and avoid relying on scripted verbal responses and actions. I develop robots capable of managing group dynamics, supporting user-initiated interaction, and ensuring long-term user engagement. My work contributes to the future of companion robots with greater adaptivity and accessibility. I have published my research in top conferences including HRI, CHI, and RO-MAN.

Publication & Journals

[HRI 2024] Role-Playing with Robot Characters: Increasing User Engagement through Narrative and Gameplay Agency

Our results show that increasing user agency in a role-playing experience, in either its narrative or its gameplay, improves users' flow state, sense of autonomy and competence, verbal engagement, and perceptions of the robot characters' engagement. Increasing narrative agency also led to longer unprompted reactions from participants, while gameplay agency improved feelings of immersion and relatedness with the robots. These findings suggest that creating either narrative or gameplay agency can improve user engagement, which can extend to broader robot interactions where gameplay elements and role-playing in stories can be incorporated.

Spencer Ng, Ting-Han Lin, You Li, Sarah Sebo

[HRI 2024] Role-Playing with Robot Characters: Increasing User Engagement through Narrative and Gameplay Agency

[CHI 2023] ThrowIO: Actuated TUIs that Facilitate “Throwing and Catching” Spatial Interaction with Overhanging Mobile Wheeled Robots

By computationally facilitating throwing and catching interaction, our approach can be applied in many applications including kinesthetic learning, gaming, immersive haptic experience, ceiling storage, and communication. We demonstrate the applications with a proof-of-concept system enabled by wheeled robots, ceiling hardware design, and software control. Overall, ThrowIO opens up novel spatial, dynamic, and tangible interaction for users via overhanging robots, which has great potential to be integrated into our everyday space.

Ting-Han Lin, Willa Yunqi Yang, Ken Nakagaki

[CHI 2023] ThrowIO: Actuated TUIs that Facilitate “Throwing and Catching” Spatial Interaction with Overhanging Mobile Wheeled Robots

[CHI 2023] Ice-Breaking Technology: Robots and Computers Can Foster Meaningful Connections between Strangers through In-Person Conversations

We found that the humanoid robot facilitator was able to elicit the greatest compliance with the deep conversation questions. Additionally, participants in conversations facilitated by either the humanoid robot or the computer screen reported greater happiness and connection to their conversation partner than those in conversations facilitated by a poster. These results suggest that technology-enabled conversation facilitators can be useful in breaking the ice between strangers.

Alex Wuqi Zhang, Ting-Han Lin, Xuan Zhao, Sarah Sebo

[CHI 2023] Ice-Breaking Technology: Robots and Computers Can Foster Meaningful Connections between Strangers through In-Person Conversations

[RO-MAN 2022] Benefits of an Interactive Robot Character in Immersive Puzzle Games

Our results show that participants playing with a robot had more fun, felt less judged, and felt more connected with the robot while solving tasks compared to those playing with a human. These results suggest that robots can be effective alternatives to human actors in broader immersive entertainment contexts such as escape rooms to provide greater enjoyment and promote more social interaction with in-game characters.

Ting-Han Lin*, Spencer Ng*, Sarah Sebo (*equal contribution)

[RO-MAN 2022] Benefits of an Interactive Robot Character in Immersive Puzzle Games

[IFJ 2019] Autonomous Cars: Driving the Future Forward?

No longer just a relic of science fiction movies, autonomous cars have become a reality. Autonomous cars are heavily researched and developed by both large technology companies and traditional car manufacturers.Within a couple of years, autonomous cars will be able to transport people from one place to another on a massive scale. However, their emergence would actually lead to safety concerns and umemployment crisis. With these drawbacks in mind, would autonomous cars drive our future forward?

Ting-Han Lin

[IFJ 2019] Autonomous Cars: Driving the Future Forward?

News

12/02/2024 One first author paper got accepted at HRI 2025 Melbourne, Australia

03/14/2024 One paper got presented at HRI 2024 Boulder, Colorado, USA

09/26/2023 Officially started my PhD at UChicago!

04/23/2023 Two papers got presented at CHI 2023 Hamburg, Germany

Projects & Fun Stuff

Between the Words

With the popularity of digital games, social media, and other data-sharing platforms, more and more individuals' information is tracked and used without users being aware. Often, people give companies information about themselves without knowing how that data may be shared or sold to other parties.

Between the Words