Materials:
Aluminum, acrylic, stainless steel, PET-G
AUR is a robotic desk lamp, a collaborative lighting assistant. It serves as a non-anthropomorphic robotic platform as part of my Ph.D thesis on human-robot fluency, embodiment, and nonverbal behavior.
The lamp's design was conceived around an existing 5-DoF robotic arm, and is aimed to evoke a personal relationship with the human partner without resorting to creature-like features such as eyes, limbs, or a mouth. By retaining the lamp's "objectness", I hope to explore the relationship that can be maintained between a human and an object through abstract gestures and nonverbal behavior alone.
The lamp is animated using a custom pipeline enabling the dynamic control of behaviors authored - in part - in a 3d animation system, and has perform in a unique human-robot joint theater performance in May 2007.
News:
Aug07: AUR wins RO-MAN 2007 robot design competition !
May07: AUR's stage debut.
May07: Concept video showing AUR assisting in desktop tasks.
Apr07: Video of AUR's maiden run.
