![[OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice](https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2018/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/stop-banner.png)
Mimus is a curious industrial robot coded not to follow instructive movements, but to explore and respond to her surrounding environment from data collected through sensors. Placed in a glass room, Mimus interacts with people walking around her by approaching them and moving along with their movements. The designer, Madeline Gannon, intended to respond to the fear that robots are taking work away from humans. She believes in “a more optimistic future, where robots do not replace our humanity, but instead amplify and expand it”. In her works, robots are treated as living creatures with emotions rather than objects, and she works towards a relationship of empathy and companionship between man and machine.
Madeline graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Ph.D. in Computational Design and have since then been developing projects with natural gesture interfaces and digital fabrication. Some of her other works, for example, Tactum, allows people with little to none coding knowledge to be able to participate in the design process with very intuitive gestures. Her work intends to blur the line between man and machine and to break the stereotypical idea of dominance, and to prove that co-existence and collaboration can better amplify our human capabilities.
