Pepper Exercise Coach

Pepper Exercise Coach examined the design of an exercise-coaching experience with Pepper, a social humanoid robot. The project considered more than the mechanics of a robot performing motions: it focused on how an embodied system could guide, communicate with, and motivate a person during an activity.

Building this kind of system required bringing together interaction design, robot behavior, and the practical details of an experience that needs to feel clear, supportive, and responsive to a user.

The project helped ground later interests in embodied AI in a human-centered setting, where intelligent behavior has to be legible and useful to the person interacting with the robot.

I contributed to this work in Carnegie Mellon’s TBD Lab under the mentorship of Rayna Hata, with Aaron Steinfeld as the faculty lead.