Robotics in Second Life

Virtual worlds are quickly growing; both in interactivity and realism, users can experience through their avatars, and the number of actual users is continuously growing as well. Among the virtual worlds, Second Life (SL) is perhaps one of the most famous. This article presents a project whose aim is to use SL as a means to spread robotics culture as well as to investigate possible paradigms of social interaction in heterogeneous communities of robots and humans. As a first step, a point of presence has been established in SL through the development of a building to represent and host the activities of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). In addition, simplified models and behaviors of some robots have been reproduced and used for demonstrations both within and around the building itself.