Students worked directly with physical robotic platforms and explored how intelligence translates into movement, timing, and interaction. When intelligence moves into physical space, small technical decisions become visible. A delay of a fraction of a second changes how an action is perceived. A slightly unstable movement affects trust. Students quickly realized that designing for embodied AI requires thinking beyond code.

Physical AI is not only a research topic,  it is increasingly part of industrial production and everyday contexts. Understanding that transition from experiment to application was a central aspect of the course.

The week brought together perspectives from David’s industry practice, combined with animation principles and design processes. He shared concrete examples from working on real-world robotic systems, which grounded our discussions in practical experience rather than speculation.

For the students, it was important to see how design decisions evolve from early prototypes to systems that are actually deployed. Small choices in timing, movement quality, or interaction logic can scale into significant effects in real environments.

The Human–Robot Interactions course was hosted at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME), organised in collaboration between the MOME Robotics Studio and the Interaction Design MA program. The course featured the Reachy Mini robotic platform (in collaboration with Seeed Studio) and drew on David Robert’s professional experience at animated-matter and Boston Dynamics. David’s visit was supported by the MOME Global Voices program.