MIT Student Dances With Robots.

AScribe Health News Service, February, 2004

Byline: MIT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- The bubbly clarinet solo that opens a 1940s swing classic begins, setting a pair of dancers in motion. They move in constant rhythm, varying their steps to the song's changing tempo. Slight pushes and pulls of the dancers' hands allow seamless transitions between swing-outs, tuck turns and Texas Tommies.

You might call this swing dancing. Or you might call it a highly evolved system of communication and control via haptic (touch-based) signaling. MIT graduate student Sommer Gentry, an expert swing dancer, sees it both ways.

Gentry, who has appointments in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, is...

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