Virtual Reality Avatar: A Robotic Mimicry Experience

Scientists from Cornell and Brown University made a cool robot called VRoxy. It’s not just any robot; it’s special because it can work with virtual reality. Imagine you put on those VR glasses that make you feel like you’re in a different world. With VRoxy, you can use these glasses to control a robot in another place.

So, if you’re in your room wearing these glasses and you have VRoxy, you can work with your friends who are far away in a big room. It’s like you’re all together in the same place, even though you’re not.

VRoxy can do two main things. First, it can show you what’s happening in the big room in real-time, so you can see and talk to your friends like you’re really there. Second, it can help you move around in that big room, almost like teleporting, so you can quickly go where you want without getting sick.

The cool part is that VRoxy does these things automatically, so you don’t have to control it yourself. This means you can focus on working with your friends instead of steering the robot.

The person who made this robot, Mose Sakashita, says that using VRoxy allows you to work with others in a big space, even if you’re in a small room.

The robot can also copy your movements and expressions, like if you nod your head or look at something. It has a camera to see all around, a screen that shows your face, a robot finger, and wheels to move around.

In the future, they want to give VRoxy robot arms so you can interact with real things in that big space. This project got support from the National Science Foundation and the Nakajima Foundation.