Embodied4Arts

The 1st Embodied4Arts Workshop @ RSS 2026

Robots as Creative Partners for Artistic, Expressive, and Craft Tasks

Embodied4Arts welcomes work at the intersection of robotics and the arts: robots that paint, draw, perform, sculpt, craft, compose, fabricate, collaborate, or otherwise participate in creative practice.

Submissions are open. Choose the regular workshop paper/demo track, the Robot Painting Challenge track, or submit to both by June 24, 2026.
Track A

Workshop Papers & Demos

For any robotics-and-arts paper, system, method, demo, position piece, or early result, as long as it contributes artistic, robotic, or human-centered insight beyond leaderboard improvement alone.

Submit Paper or Demo
Track B

Robot Painting Challenge

For teams entering the target-image-to-robot-painting competition. Challenge entries should include a method note and result media.

View Challenge Rules
OpenReview Submission Portal Contact
Robotic creative studio with painting, craft, and music-inspired embodied tasks
Painting, music performance, and computational craft as physically grounded tests for creative robotics.
Date July 13, 2026
Location Sydney, Australia
Format Half-day RSS workshop
Contact yanjia@ucla.edu

Flagship Challenge

Can your robot turn a target artwork into physical strokes?

The Embodied4Arts Robot Painting Challenge gives every team the same target artwork and asks for an executable painting program. The result is evaluated as an artwork and as an embodied plan: what strokes were chosen, how they were ordered, and how well they survive the realities of motion, tools, and time.

Submit Challenge Entry Ask About the Challenge
TaskTarget image to robot painting
OutputExecutable strokes or trajectories
Prize Pool$1,500
TracksQuality and timed execution
Track 1

Open-Time Quality

Optimize for the best final reproduction quality with no strict execution-time limit. This track highlights the algorithmic upper bound: stroke decomposition, layering, color use, style preservation, and visual fidelity.

  • Primary goal: produce the best and most faithful final painting
  • Evaluation: target similarity, human preference, style preservation
  • Secondary factors: stroke quality, physical feasibility, material constraints
Track 2

Fixed-Time Painting

Paint under the same execution-time budget. This track rewards systems that make smart tradeoffs between visual quality, stroke economy, path planning, speed, and robust robot execution.

  • Primary goal: create the best painting within a fixed time limit
  • Evaluation: time-bounded quality, similarity, and human rating
  • Secondary factors: motion efficiency, reliability, safety constraints

What to Submit

  • A 1-2 page method note describing the painting algorithm, robot setup, tools, and constraints
  • A target-to-painting result image or video, plus intermediate stroke plan when available
  • For hardware entries, a short execution video showing the robot painting process

Judging Criteria

  • Visual similarity to the target artwork and human preference ratings
  • Expressive stroke quality, color use, and preservation of style
  • Physical feasibility, trajectory efficiency, robustness, and safety-aware execution

Participation

  • Teams may enter either or both tracks
  • Simulated, plotted, or real robot systems are welcome when assumptions are clearly stated
  • Selected entries may be invited for a lightning talk, poster, or live/demo video showcase

Sponsored by Axis.ai. Sponsorship funds will be used only for prizes and community materials, and will not influence selection, review, or awards decisions.

Total prize pool: $1,500 Grand Prize: $800 2nd: $300 3rd: $200 Best Open-Time Quality: $100 Best Fixed-Time Painting: $100

Overview

Why Creative Embodiment?

Robotics is entering an era of foundation models and data-driven policies, but many benchmarks still reward narrow task completion. Artistic and craft practices expose a richer set of requirements: contact-rich tool use, deformable materials, timing, expressive control, subjective human evaluation, authorship, and cultural context.

In these settings, small modeling errors leave visible traces. A robot painting a line, folding cloth, carving a form, dancing with a human, or performing music must be physically grounded, controllable, and expressive. Embodied4Arts brings together robotics, the arts, HRI, robot learning, manipulation, control, world models, graphics, fabrication, and creative AI to discuss systems and ideas that move beyond benchmark chasing.

Motivating Questions

What should creative robots be able to learn, plan, and explain?

01

How can generative models become generative motor programs that obey physical constraints?

02

What metrics capture style, expressivity, preference, and authorship beyond success or pixel similarity?

03

How can robots imagine creative outcomes while maintaining contact, material, and safety validity?

04

How should human feedback guide creative robots without collapsing artistic agency into optimization alone?

Areas of Interest

Workshop Themes

Painting and Drawing as Programs

Converting intent from text, image, or sketch into executable stroke programs under tool, surface, and motion constraints.

  • Stroke planning and macro-actions
  • Verification-aware decoding
  • Metrics for style and efficiency

Embodied Music and Expressive Control

Modeling timing, dynamics, articulation, compliance, and co-performance rather than note correctness alone.

  • Expressive performance policies
  • Audio-visual feedback for control
  • Human-aligned performance ratings

Deformables and Computational Craft

Learning and planning for folding, weaving, sewing, knotting, draping, and fabrication-aware manipulation.

  • World models for deformable dynamics
  • Long-horizon structured planning
  • Reproducible craft benchmarks

Organization

Organizers

Yanjia Huang UCLA Peihao Li UC Berkeley Ying Jiang UCLA Yunuo Chen UCLA Mingyang Wu Texas A&M University Xiangbo Gao Texas A&M University Haoran Geng UC Berkeley Yining Hong Stanford University Chenfanfu Jiang UCLA Zhengzhong Tu Texas A&M University

Program

Tentative Half-Day Schedule

Opening remarks: scope, goals, and challenge overview

Invited talks: painting as programs and expressive music control

Coffee break and poster session

Invited talk: deformables, craft, and physical simulation

Contributed lightning talks

Challenge report and winner spotlights

Panel discussion and audience Q&A

Breakout discussions and report-back

Closing and community next steps

Call for Contributions

Paper, Demo, and Challenge Submissions Are Open

We invite two kinds of contributions. The regular workshop track welcomes any non-archival robotics-and-arts contribution: extended abstracts, short video demos, systems, methods, position papers, design studies, creative practice reports, negative results, and early-stage ideas. We especially welcome work that creates artistic or human-centered value, not submissions whose main contribution is only improving a benchmark score.

Authors may submit to the workshop track, the challenge track, or both. Accepted workshop papers and demos will be considered for posters and lightning talks; selected challenge entries will be considered for the challenge showcase and awards.

Submit via OpenReview Email Organizers
Submission Deadline June 24, 2026

Regular Workshop Track

  • Extended abstract: 1-2 pages
  • Video demo: 2-3 minutes plus 1-page summary
  • Accepted entries may be invited for posters or lightning talks

Challenge Track

  • Robot painting entry with selected track: open-time or fixed-time
  • Method note plus result image, video, or execution evidence
  • Accepted entries may be featured in the challenge showcase

Review Criteria

  • Relevance to robotics and the arts
  • Artistic, robotic, or human-centered insight beyond leaderboard improvement alone
  • Clarity, originality, feasibility, and community value

Important Dates

  • Submissions open: June 3, 2026
  • Submission deadline: June 24, 2026
  • Notification: TBD
  • Workshop: July 13, 2026