Project Number

321

Title

Public Anemone: An Organic Robot Creature

Description

Interactive synthetic life form designed to explore qualities of living presence that appeal to humans.

Contact

Cynthia Breazeal

Affiliation

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Address

Media Laboratory 
77 Massachusetts Avenue NE 18-5fl 
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

E-mail

cynthiab@media.mit.edu

WWW

Year

2002

Reference

SIGGRAPH 2002 Conference Abstracts and Applications

Project Details

"Inspired by primitive life, Public Anemone is a robotic creature with an organic appearance and [graceful] quality of movement. Situated in an interactive terrarium that transitions from day to night, the cyber flora and fauna of this robotic garden can be manipulated by touch and proximity at night, and by gesture and movement during the day." 
 
"Public Anemone was created to explore the aesthetic, expressive, and interactive qualities that give robots an organic and engaging [life-like] presence to people." 
 
In the exhibition, the day-to-night cycle is ten minutes for the stage. During the day, the robotic creature sociably interacts with people using color video cameras to perceive activity around it. Its response system is highly expressive to support socializing with visitors. During the night cycle, smaller, nocturnal creatures awake that respond to touch and proximity with sound, light, and movement.

Sight

Public Anemone, terrarium stage, nocturnal creatures

Sound

amplified sound

Touch

Public Anemone organic interactions

Smell

Taste

Other

Emergence

1 - Innovation, Custom, Research

Intent

1 - Technology (innovation, machine)

Primary

106 - autonomous character, synthetic life

Secondary

203 - interactive paradigm, technique

Remarks

Supported by code from Synthetic Characters Group for interactive characters including real-tim perception, motivation, task-based behavior, and expressive movement. 

 

Last updated: 5 Jul 2002
Sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH, Copyright © 2002 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (ACM)
Contact us: etech-map@siggraph.org