The researcher Concha Monje explains in the video the reasons that led to leaving TEO naked, the most advanced Spanish humanoid robot
TEO, the humanoid robot that they develop in the Robotics Lab from UC3M, stars in this short film produced by ROS Film Festival. TEO, the naked robot, It was presented to the public at the IV edition of the international robotics-themed short film festival held in Alicante.
In the short film, TEO’s story is told by Concha Monje, a researcher at the Robotics Lab. TEO, the naked robot, tells the complex process to dress a robot, and why he finally got naked.
Teo was conceived as a naked robot. Originally, its structure was already designed to have an aesthetic function without the need for a housing.
TEO is a very ambitious project, it is a humanoid prototype of which there are few in the world and although initially it was conceived not to carry a housing, with the evolution of the project, there are more and more embedded systems within TEO, and the idea was to dress the robot to protect them and give it a friendlier appearance than it does without a housing.
We started thinking about putting on a really innovative and attractive suit for those who interact with the robot. We hire an artist, Marina Anaya, and she was the one who gave us a lot of ideas, from a head where we could house a lot of systems such as eyes, microphones, speakers, to various examples of bodies, always looking for the robot to be round and friendly.
A circus costume for TEO
The sketches range from a kind of harlequin to something that is perhaps a little more circus. We let the imagination run wild. Little by little the sketches were limited to those that were a little more faithful to the original anatomy of the robot, more functional and practical.
Afterwards, different types of head were evaluated. In Marina Anaya’s designs, the robot was filled with life from the inside, with lungs and other internal organs. The final casing that was arrived at served an aesthetic function, but also a functional one. They are two volumetric bodies that allow movement between them, so that one gets inside the other and vice versa.
Dressing the arms and legs
Different designs for the feet were also evaluated at the joint points of the robot. The robot’s feet also have to be free. They are a critical point in stability and therefore, that joint is very delicate and a collision between the foot shell and the ankle itself could not occur. The artist came and we were able to test a preliminary design on the robot, moving it and checking that there were no collisions.
“At that time we were experiencing a very important economic crisis, there were tremendous cuts in research and in the end we had to choose to dedicate that money to research, to continue advancing in the robot. And TEO was left naked »
The final model was sent for prototyping in different materials. The housings had to be divided into different parts so that they could be easily assembled on the robot. We did not want screws, we wanted something very light and that could be modulated, mounted on arms, legs, trunk etc. All of this involved a significant number of parts in the casing that had to be joined together. Making those prototype molds cost thousands of euros. But then we were experiencing a very important economic crisis, there were tremendous cuts in research and in the end we had to choose to dedicate that money to research, to continue advancing in the robot. And TEO was left naked.
But I think it is also important to invest in the aesthetics of the robot. The robot could be an intelligent, interactive, robust, functional, wonderful machine. But there is a part that we humans love and it makes the interaction really definitive. And in this, the aesthetics of the robot, the appearance of this machine that we relate to, is really valuable.
