Embodied Futures: Humanoid Robot & Social Narrative Challenge
Embodied Futures is a student hackathon organised by the Academy of Arts & Design (AAD) at Tsinghua University and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) cluster at SUTD, exploring the next generation of daily life and human-robot collaboration. The program challenges participants to design “intent interfaces” that go beyond simple commands to anticipate human goals and align robot logic with our deeper motives. By focusing on ethics, expressive movement, and social awareness, the event aims to create robots that provide precise, thoughtful assistance in physical spaces while truly understanding the context of the world around them.
Programme focus
Future Lifestyles & Service Systems
Robots are treated as a medium for designing new modes of living, service delivery, and public interaction in dense urban contexts.
Intent Interface & Cognitive Alignment
Participants explore how anticipatory interfaces translate human intention, environmental cues, and social motivation into aligned robot behaviour.
Embodied Service
The outcome is a service prototype that combines ethical care, movement quality, and high-precision delivery in real space.
Design AI Integration
The program utilises generative AI and world-modelling tools to bridge the gap between human intent and robotic execution. Participants will leverage AI during the scenario construction phase to rapidly prototype complex social narratives and cognitive alignments.
Six challenge tracks
- High-value asset management: Galleries, laboratories, and luxury showrooms for inspection and delicate asset handling.
- Invisible urban logistics: Shared pathways and last-mile delivery in high-density urban infrastructure.
- Silver economy infrastructure: Smart eldercare with caring movement, assisted mobility, and home-system coordination.
- Sustainable facility management: Preventive maintenance for facades, green infrastructure, and ecological landscapes.
- Creative tech & hospitality: Embodied guides for airports, retail, and immersive tourism with brand personality.
- Circular economy operations: Smart recycling and autonomous sorting for high-value material recovery.
Programme flow
| Phase | Date | Activities |
| Online kick-off | Early May | An introduction to the hackathon framework, the six challenge tracks, embodied interaction methods, robot persona development, and the link between intent interface, world modelling, and embodied service. This session helps participants clarify team direction and prepare for the on-site hackathon. |
| On-site day 1 | 23 May | Focused on scenario construction and alignment. Teams will utilise AI tools to assist in building 1:1 service scenarios, using these technologies to define the robot’s role, map key interaction moments, and translate intent into initial behavioural scripts through reflective dialogue and spatial testing. |
| On-site day 2 | 24 May | Focused on embodiment and presentation. Teams refine service logic, movement quality, and interaction rhythm, then present a future service concept developed through scenario design, cognitive alignment, and embodied delivery. |
Instructors
Zhiyong Fu
Professor at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. His work focuses on design futures, interaction design, embodied intelligence, and service innovation, especially scenario building and social narrative for future human–AI relations.
Lin Zhu
Postdoctoral fellow and design educator at Tsinghua University Academy of Arts & Design. Her work addresses design methodology, AI-supported interaction, and embodied experience, with emphasis on translating design intent into socially meaningful robot behaviour.