Vizzy is a wheeled humanoid robot carefully designed for an enjoyable / pleasurable interaction with humans. In this paper evaluate Vizzy’s application as an exercise coach according to user’s perceived robot aesthetics, trust, confidence, and enjoyment. We describe the proposed robotic platform skills, interfaces, and interaction modes. We have deployed Vizzy in three care centers in Portugal for the promotion of exercise activities and tested its performance with 36 elderly users. Survey data collected after the interaction with the robot show a good acceptance of the robotic platform as an exercise coach. From observations and short interviews, we also extracted a set of guidelines that led to several improvements and ideas for future work.
