CaseyHunt

  • PhD Student
  • MS, CTD—Creative Industries '21
  • PARTICIPATORY HUMAN ROBOT INTERACTION
  • ATLAS INSTITUTE
Profile photo of Casey Hunt

In my research, I partner with people—like older adults, children, and first responders—to explore how robots might support them. These groups stand to gain a lot from robots—better safety, education, communication, and assistance—and they know best what would actually help. Yet their ideas are also shaped, and often limited, by what they already know about robots.

Participatory design researchers have developed techniques to guide brainstorms about unfamiliar technologies, but robots are particularly tricky: they’re technically complex (with moving parts, electronics, algorithms, and interfaces) and culturally pervasive. As a result, collaborators’ ideas can drift toward the fantastical, leaving engineers to heavily interpret their suggestions in order to build real robots.

In my research, I design and evaluate purpose-built tools that help partners better understand robots, amplifying their perspectives by reducing the need for engineers to editorialize their ideas. From 2021–2024, I partnered with KidsTeam UW and researchers at the University of Washington, University of Michigan, Pratt Institute, and University of Maryland to explore how co-designing using tabletop telepresence robots changed what we created and how we collaborated. This work produced a tool for remote participatory design with children, a deeper understanding of how children interpret tabletop robots, and early insights into how tabletop robots can support remote and hybrid intergenerational co-design.

Since 2024, I have been designing and testing the Robot Development Kit (RDK), a low-cost, remixable construction kit for participatory HRI research. RDK combines 3D-printed joints with PVC pipe and uses a constructionist approach, where building becomes a way of learning. As partners prototype, they gain a better understanding of the tradeoffs and challenges that roboticists face, guiding them toward robot designs that are personal, imaginative, and buildable.

Outside of research, I am an experienced educator and mentor. Currently, I facilitate after-school LEGO clubs at four Denver Public Schools. In the past, I have also taught and designed curriculum from elementary through college with CU Science Discovery, the Pre-College Outreach Program (POP), and the ATLAS Institute. I’m always looking for new collaborators, and I love to support students seeking advice on pursuing graduate school—don’t hesitate to reach out!

Projects

Publications

Casey Lee Hunt, Kaiwen Sun, Zahra Dhuliawala, Fumi Tsukiyama, Allison Druin, Amanda Huynh, Daniel Leithinger and Jason Yip. 2025. "Children using Tabletop Telepresence Robots for Collaboration: A Longitudinal Case Study of Hybrid and Online Intergenerational Participatory Design". In: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'25) (Yokohama, Japan, April 26-May 1, 2025).

Casey Lee Hunt, Kaiwen Sun, Kaitlyn Tseng, Priyanka Balasubramaniyam, Allison Druin, Amanda Huynh, Daniel Leithinger and Jason Yip. 2024. "". In: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC'24) (Delft, Netherlands, June 17-20, 2024).

C. L. Hunt, K. Sun, Z. Dhuliawala, F. Tsukiyama, I. Matkovic, Z. Schwemier, A. Wolf, Z. Zhang, A. Druin, A. Huynh,D. Leithinger, J. Yip. 2023. “”. In:ACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC '23)(Chicago, IL, June 19-23, 2023).

Ran Zhou,Zachary Schwemler, Akshay Baweja, Harpreet Sareen,Casey Lee Hunt, andDaniel Leithinger. 2023. "". In:Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(Hamburg, Germany, April 23-28, 2023).

Ran Zhou,Zachary Schwemler, Akshay Baweja, Harpreet Sareen,Casey Lee Hunt, andDaniel Leithinger. 2023. "". In:Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(Hamburg, Germany, April 23-28, 2023).

Chris Hill*,Casey Lee Hunt* (*shared first authorship),Sammie Crowder, Brett Fiedler, Emily B. Moore, andAnn Eisenberg. 2023. “”. In:Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '23)(Warsaw, Poland, February 26 - March 1, 2023).