Playing with Drones: Towards understanding the design of drone-based pervasive play

Human-Drone Interaction is a fast-growing subset of the field of Human-Computer Interaction as drones enable novel and interesting interactions in 3D space as they can be regarded as pixels in physical space. We examine the intersection of drones and play and explore how drones can facilitate playful bodily experiences by pervading the physical space. We focus on "Paida" play to build explorative play experiences that pervade the player's physical environment. This work resulted in three play experiences built around simple interaction methods, in addition to observations from our design process, and three design strategies; drone-based play lends itself to collaborative play, such play benefits from simple designs, and designers benefit from designing for multiple players. From these design strategies, we set a starting point for designing novel, pervasive, and playful interactions whilst regarding drones as pixels in the physical space.