The Greeting Machine: An Abstract Robotic Object for Opening Encounters

The Greeting Machine is a robotic object, designed to convey the social interaction of greeting using only a minimalistic movement. Designed to be a small ball moving on a bigger sphere, it is an abstract object with no resemblance to humans, animals, household objects or most familiar robots.

To create expressive movement, gestures were designed with movement experts such as a choreographer, puppeteer and animator.

Experiments with the Greeting Machine show that it not only creates an experience perceived as an opening encounter, but, through the gesture design, it can also evoke positive and negative experiences.