--------------------------------------------
i n v e s t i g a t o r s :

Keith Evan Green
Design & MechE, Cornell

Gilly Leshed
Info Sci, Cornell

Ge (Serena) Guo
PhD student lead, Info Sci, Cornell

MirrorBot

       Fostering Serendipitous Human Connections Through Robotic Mirrors


v i d e o :

Full Video for CHI 2025 / Interactivity Paper [in press]

o v e r v i e w :

Eye contact, even momentarily between strangers, plays a pivotal role in fostering human connection, promoting happiness, and enhancing belonging. Yet, the physical rigidity of public spaces, such as airport terminals, often limits opportunities for meaningful interactions between strangers who often remain absorbed in their personal activities. This paper introduces Mirrorbot, a robotic mirror system that transforms static environments into dynamic, sociospatial interfaces. Through autonomous navigation and adaptive mirror control, Mirrorbot facilitates serendipitous, non-verbal interactions by dynamically transitioning reflections from self-focused to mutual recognition, sparking eye contact, shared awareness, and playful engagement. By integrating mirrors—a familiar and accessible architectural element—Mirrorbot disrupts conventional isolation in public spaces, enabling embodied, accessible interactions that go beyond screen-based solutions. This work demonstrates the potential of interactive mirrors to enrich public spaces, fostering spontaneous connections in shared environments.

Four states of the mirrors: (a). Voids, (b). Dual self, (c). Dual Other, and (d). Self + Other.

System.

p u b l i c a t i o n s :

Ge Guo, Gilly Leshed, and Keith Evan Green. [In press]. MirrorBot: Exploring Socio-Spatial Interactions that FosterSerendipitous Human Connections Through Robotic Mirrors. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25), April 6 - May 2, 2025, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA.