HOUSTON – The outfit Rice University freshman Pedro Regino modeled at the university’s engineering design showcase Thursday made him look like a real robot.
But it is really a NotBot.
It's a robot costume designed to help NASA evaluate how humans will interact with robots.
The goal is to make the costume so real that people are convinced.
"In a few years, humans and robots will be interacting in space together for very long periods of time. To insure the success of these missions in space, NASA needs to be currently conducting human-robot interaction tests," Regino said.
NASA wanted a convincing look-alike of its current humanoid robot.
This is not simply make-believe.
A robot is in space aboard the international space station.
"Our suit would come in to replace the actual robotic technology as sort of a simulator testing these human-robot interactions," Rice University freshman Rebecca Francis said.
The students said what NASA could learn using the robot costume could help develop guidelines for robot use for a possible Mars mission.
"It's intentionally limited mobility so it imitates what you would expect a robot to look like in the real world," Rice freshman Grant Wilkinson said.