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 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 human-like features. By retaining the lamp’s “objectness”, I hope to explore the relationship that can be maintained through abstract gestures and nonverbal behavior alone.

The lamp is animated using a custom pipeline enabling the dynamic control of behaviors authored in a 3d animation system, and will perform in a unique human-robot joint theater performance this spring.

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