A promising first step into the world of research

Davy, Gabriel, Guilherme, and Nuno decided to team up and proposed a particularly interesting project: to develop a robot capable not only of sorting household waste according to different recycling streams, but also of detecting uncertainty in human reactions when people question the robot's choices.

"During their first presentation, the system did not work with the reliability required for this type of application," continues Adriana Tapus. "But I saw the project's great potential and suggested that we write a scientific article together for HRI 2026, as it was a typical example of human-robot interaction. The only problem was that we only had three weeks left before the paper submission deadline!"

Once the students got over their surprise at the proposal, enthusiasm took over. Adriana Tapus introduced them to one of her doctoral students, Caio Conti, to help them structure the project so that it would be accepted at the conference.

« Davy, Gabriel, Guilherme, and Nuno were exemplary, meeting all the requirements and staying motivated despite the technical challenges, » says the Professor.
 

Caio Conti, himself a doctoral student who coordinated the team's work, understands this need for reflection. "It all depends on each person's goals: if you already know you want to go into industry afterwards, there's no need to do a thesis. But at the same time, as these students have realized, doing science means facing new challenges, coming up with new ideas, and finding new ways to solve problems. Research is therefore also an excellent training ground for complex project management!"