Soothing ‘Rhythm Robots’ Blend Art and Engineering

Calming, relaxing, and meditative are not usually words synonymous with robots, but they are to Professor Naomi Leonard ’85, chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

For more than two years, Leonard has collaborated with faculty in the arts at Princeton on Rhythm Bots, an installation of robots programmed to move in ways that create a soothing environment. It’s just one example of the interdisciplinary — and unexpected — collection of projects that make up CreativeX, where faculty work collaboratively at the intersection of art and engineering. CreativeX publicly launched this summer, years after the idea came about over informal lunch conversations.

At the June showcase in the robotics lab, the 20 involved faculty introduced themselves and their projects, some of which have already translated to industry, while others are in progress or in the planning stages. The same day, the website CreativeXProject.org went live.

“The artists and engineers of CreativeX embrace the excitement of the unknown,” Leonard, founding director of CreativeX, said at the event. “We thrive in the spaces between disciplines, encouraging our members to explore, question, and take risks. This unique platform for experimentation leads to innovative ways of thinking and doing.”

Leonard’s Rhythm Bots debuted in Philadelphia in 2022. The machines have circular bases and stand about 4 feet tall, with triangles and circles affixed near their tops. The robots are arranged separately and asymmetrically around whatever space they occupy, and chairs among the robots invite audience members to sit down and absorb the environment. The robots’ movements, which are coordinated, emanate a gentle ticking sound, and over months and years Leonard and her collaborators have added other features, such as sensors that allow the robots to respond to nearby movement.

During Reunions this year, 12 of the robots were installed at the Wallace Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts at events open to the public. Colorful and ever-changing lighting and subtle background sounds simultaneously reminiscent of water flowing over rocks and tires on a gravel road added to the robots’ movements, which are “intended to create a meditative public space” where the audience can have “a calming and relaxing experience,” according to Leonard.

Leonard has collaborated on Rhythm Bots with Susan Marshall, director of Princeton’s dance program; Dan Trueman *99, chair and professor of the Department of Music; and Jane Cox, director and professor of the Program in Theater and Music Theater.

NODES (Net tOpologies and Dance Explorations), another CreativeX project, uses large-scale nets as settings for artistic performances by aerial dancers and is the result of a collaboration between Sigrid Andriaenssens, professor of civil and environmental engineering; Rebecca Lazier, associate director and professor of dance; and sculptor Janet Echelman, a former visiting lecturer in the Princeton Atelier.

At the showcase, Andriaenssens said she asked NODES dancers about their interactions with the net, such as when the net was stiff and when it was soft, and “they were reporting the conditions … exactly the opposite of how structures normally work. So, I was very interested in finding out how this phenomenon works” for applications like architecture resilient to seismic events.

CreativeX is funded by a grant through the School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean’s Fund, with additional funding and support from the Department of Music and the Lewis Center for the Arts. 

The faculty members of CreativeX “envision growing interactions with a range of scholars as we jointly explore our humanity and our science in the face of the complexities of our world,” Leonard said.

“Our open-ended approach shows how embracing creativity’s free-flowing nature and pushing beyond traditional boundaries unlocks new potential.”