Bandit Will Stare At You Until You Exercise
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Friday, 20 of November , 2009 at 3:52 am
Bandit here is a sort of friendly, sort of scary robot designed to help you exercise. And I mean, that’s what you want in a personal trainer, right? Somebody nice, but somebody who you’ll perform for ’cause you’re worried that if you don’t they’ll suck your soul out. Yeah, that’s Bandit.
Bandit is helping the University of Southern California Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems conduct a study on exercise training. 70 volunteers of all ages (including 20 people aged 60 or older living in retirement homes) will have either Bandit himself or Bandit on video as a trainer, and the researchers will try to figure out if the physical presence of the robot makes a difference.
I would say that Bandit isn’t quite human enough to set off those Uncanny Valley alarm bells, but come on guys, are eyelids too much to ask? It’s that creepy unblinking stare that really puts people off.
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Comment by XV-745
Made Friday, 20 of November , 2009 at 8:33 am
This one definitely falls too close to the creepy end of the spectrum, IMO. I’d only do the exercises this robot told me to do until I could think of some way to distract it – then I’d run like hell…
Comment by RedCode
Made Monday, 23 of November , 2009 at 7:03 am
çok güzel fakat kücük bir detayı gözden kaçırmışsınız:D
belkide farkındasınız ama o robot yanlış elini oynatıyor..
yani sağ ele sol .. !
başarılar