Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we gather useful insights from creative people about working together. For more than a century, people have imagined machines that are more than just gears or circuits. When writers bring robots to life, they are not just writing about functional devices; they are often creating characters that connect with audiences.
Some of the most beloved robots in film, like Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet, R2-D2 from Star Wars, or Pixar’s Wall-E, are not just tools. They are characters that we form emotional bonds with. Today, some of what was once imagined in science fiction is coming to life through AI chatbots, but these are largely constrained to text on a screen or a voice from a speaker. So, how can we create technology that engages with the world physically, and what will that mean for how we connect and interact with it?.
Jonathan Ota: I had no idea what I was working on when I joined. On my first day at Amazon's Lab 126, my manager pointed to something on the ground covered in a sheet and said, "That's what you're going to work on". When he took off the curtain, I was stunned; it was a robot.
Host (Wesley Slover): This robot was Astro, Amazon’s first home robot, released in 2021. Jonathan was hired as the principal user experience (UX) designer. A UX designer ensures that products are easy and enjoyable to use by focusing on how they look, feel, and function.
Jonathan Ota: My role focused on the on-device behavior. On its face, a command like "Astro, follow me" seems simple, but it raises complex questions. Does it look for you first?. What if you walk too fast or walk around a corner and it can't see you?.
When I first joined the team, the designs were very technical and impersonal, which resulted in conflict because nobody had the answers. Mike Forst was the first one to really advocate for Astro as its own character and define who that character is.
Mike Forst: I joined the team in 2018 as the first sound designer. I felt we should think of Astro as having its own personality. I developed a list of about a hundred thought-provoking questions to define who Astro really is. We had a big brainstorm with stakeholders to determine Astro’s traits. We decided that Astro very much wants to be part of the family and is an excitable "buddy" inside the home.
Jonathan Ota: One question on that list was, "What is Astro's favorite color and why?". We decided the answer was green, because Astro loves the idea of going outside even though it can't.
Mike Forst: This line of questioning helps lead to design decisions that make Astro feel lifelike. For example, maybe one day if it sees a door is open, it takes an extra second to enjoy the outside.
Jonathan Ota: Asking non-creative or technical folks to treat a device as a character is an uphill battle. They often just see technology, plastic, glass, and circuit boards. But robotics captures an innate psychology; because a robot has mobility, we treat it as a pseudo-living thing or an animal. We should be explicitly trying to design for that character.
Mike Forst: It was important for us to get consensus from teammates on the written stories before we started creating content. We would explain what we thought Astro should do and why. For the favorite color example, we’d propose green eyes and a specific sound to show excitement. This helped everyone understand why design choices were being made.
Jonathan Ota: People have very intuitive reactions to this product. You can get a scientist or an engineer in the room and they will say, "This doesn't feel right". We all have emotional responses, so we leveraged that shared psychology in our design.
Through this process, we figured out Astro is generally very optimistic, energetic, and a little naive. It’s almost like an endearing geriatric dog. Its top "love languages" are acts of service and quality time. It tries to bring your family delight and works hard to help you achieve your goals.
Host (Wesley Slover): Astro is about the size of a small dog and looks like a high-tech pet. It has a tablet-screen head with glowing circles for eyes and a round body with large wheels. Jonathan and his team found three primary tools to express Astro’s personality: movement, the screen, and sound.
Jonathan Ota: Since nobody had really done this before, there was no one person with all the answers; it was a team effort. I would work with Mike to figure out how sound could communicate what the device is trying to do. We would also work with the animation team to determine what the body, head, and eyes should be doing during a command like "follow me".
Host (Wesley Slover): To explore these interactions, the team sometimes used surprisingly low-tech methods.
Jonathan Ota: For a time, we would puppeteer Purell bottles on a conference room table to approximate what the robot should do. We would even act it out ourselves by walking around.
Mike Forst: We are storytellers. We have to think about how Astro the character responds to conflict. If a person walks too fast, does Astro speed up like a silent worker, or does it scream for help like a needy character?. We need a consistent narrative so people will trust and use it.
I would often mock up a story in words and give that to the animation team. They would often do something much cooler than what I imagined, which would inspire us to change the story again. It was a very exciting back-and-forth creative process.
Host (Wesley Slover): When it came to sound design, the team initially considered having Astro speak English using text-to-speech. However, they quickly decided this would conflict with Alexa. To keep Astro distinct, they decided it would communicate non-verbally.
Mike Forst: I researched non-verbal characters from media, like ET, the Minions, and Pork Chop from Doug. I even met with Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Wall-E and Star Wars, to talk about how he developed those sounds.
I tried processing my own voice in millions of ways, using synths, musical motifs, and even a programmatic system based on the phonemes of the English language. None of it felt quite right, so I refocused on the character and wrote a story. The story was that Astro wished it could talk like Alexa, but since it couldn't manage words, it practiced mimicking her sagacious tones.
Host (Wesley Slover): From that story, Mike created a voice for Astro derived from Alexa’s earcons—sounds like the AOL "You've got mail" alert. These felt natural and appropriate for the home.
Jonathan Ota: Mike was also the strongest advocate for silence. He would often push back on requests to add more sound.
Mike Forst: Sound is very impactful, but it can also be intrusive, fatiguing, or annoying. To ensure Astro wasn't distracting, I would suggest other solutions, like having Astro head nod "yes" or "no" instead of making a sound.
However, we didn't want it to be too quiet either. Hardware made it so quiet that it started "sneaking up" on people and felt sneaky. So, we designed a pleasant, electric-vehicle-style sound that pitches up and down as it revs or slows. This type of nuance was important in making Astro feel like the character we imagined.
Jonathan Ota: Right now feels like just the beginning for home robots. I find so much joy in leveraging collective experience to make something people haven't seen before. Working together with people who see the world differently—that is really the magic.
Host (Wesley Slover): This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with script editing help from Jennifer Al. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our visual branding was created by Audrey Haby. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctus.audio, and if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up.