Aside our core scientific activities, we are involved in several complementary projects in which we explore ideas and technologies for entertainment social robotics, wandering around the boundaries of robotics, design, psychology, cultural and societal issues, and pure fun! Through those projects which we regularly demonstrate in public places (museums, exhibitions, science festivals, ...), we also interact with the general public in order to understand better the role that robot may (or may not) take in our society in the future.

 

The Rho-ban project

The Rho-ban project is a group of robot fans, lead by Olivier Ly, exploring low-cost yet sophisticated design of robots. The Rhoban robot you see above was mostly handcrafted, with home-made moulded mechanical parts, and electronically retuned very low-cost servo-motors. He is able to walk with dynamic control of its equilibrium, he can walk up little stairs, do acrobatic figures while maintaining its balance, surf on moving platforms, and he has cute silicon hair. 

 

 

 

FLOWERS FIELDS

Exploring a new kind of personal robotics: A robotic flowers field for entertainment and aesthetic experiences.

The Flowers Fields is an installation composed of animated roboticised lamp-like creatures, akin to Luxo Jr. Pixar lamps, and made by INRIA FLOWERS team. It is a prototype exploring new forms of personal robots that might arrive in our everyday life. Instead of humanoid or animaloid robots, it might be everyday objects that shall become robots: lamps, televisions, chairs, tables, ... Flowers Fields is currently a purely entertaining and aesthetic object, allowing to study how humans react and interact with them. The lamps move with « biological » movements and sounds that vary depending on the sound and light surrounding conditions, as well as on their internal "mood". In the silence and low light, flowers bend on themselves and are quasi immobile. In a lively and light atmosphere, they become animated, produce sounds, discuss and touch each other. When a visitor gets close, they collectively « look » in his direction and follow its gaze.
In the future, they might additionally become new tangible interfaces to the digital world, or used as a socially acceptable device interfacing with the technologies of digital healthcare for assistive robotics applications.