Grace, a Unitree Android-style humanoid robot, joined Marching Mizzou’s halftime performance on Faurot Field at the University of Missouri football game against Texas A&M Nov. 8.
The moment seemed engineered for its viral potential, a slice of halftime theater that inspired jokes that the robot revolution had finally arrived. But if this performance is the herald of a robotic takeover, it’s off to a strangely lifeless start.
Grace isn’t Mizzou’s first robot celebrity. In 2021, the College of Engineering paid $98,400 for Spot, one of Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot dogs. This purchase was the first of its kind by any public university.
Spot’s trajectory quickly diverted from inside a lab to under the limelight. Within months, the robot was strutting across Faurot Field during halftime shows. The same robot that was pitched as a cutting-edge teaching platform suddenly became a campus minor celebrity.
Somewhere between Spot’s debut tour and Grace’s big debut, Mizzou quietly built a reputation as a robot-friendly campus. MU Robotics expanded its scope; by 2022, the club’s publicly advertised structure included specialized project groups – from programming Spot to battle-bots to drone workshops – and opened membership to students across campus, not just engineering majors.
In the Autonomous Systems Lab under Mizzou Engineering, undergraduate teams program, maintain and demonstrate robots like Spot. This requires very technical work: coding, sensor configuration, mobility tuning and sometimes repurposing robotic arms for object manipulation.
These efforts show that the robots are more than halftime focal points; they’re platforms for hands-on learning and research. However, student contributions rarely get the same attention as the PR moments.
Numerous universities have discovered that nothing showcases the abstract idea of cutting-edge innovation better than a robot adorned in school colors. They’re shiny and expensive, and they turn hypothetical concepts – artificial intelligence, next-gen engineering, automation – into something tangible.
Mizzou engineering students benefit from access to advanced hardware made possible by the university’s substantial investments. Robotics research offers hands-on experience through projects that help students land internships and strengthen the university’s STEM recruitment.
Higher-ed research backs this up: robotics meaningfully improves learning when it’s woven into actual coursework, not staged as an attraction. A 2024 meta-analysis in the International Journal of STEM Education found that “robot-assisted STEM education” significantly boosts student learning and engagement when embedded in the education students are receiving.
Students learn more from robots when the robots aren’t trying to build a personal brand. While Mizzou’s tech ambitions are admirable, even the smartest machines shouldn’t be competing with students for halftime applause.
Grace – though shaped by months of student engineering – debuted not in front of the engineering department, but under arena lights at halftime, where fans half-watched on concourse TVs while waiting for beer refills.
The problem isn’t the robots or the students behind them; it’s how the university is using cutting-edge educational tools as showpieces without demonstrating how they academically serve the campus.
That lack of clarity goes beyond academics; it starts with the price tags themselves.
Spot’s price tag was publicly reported, while Grace’s price remains a mystery. Mizzou paid for Spot through the College of Engineering’s Dean’s Fund for Excellence, an internal money pot typically used to “address areas of greatest need within the College as they occur.” Grace’s funding source hasn’t been clearly articulated yet.
This is not to say Mizzou should abstain from the robotics field – it’s a powerful investment. The question is whether these investments are being used to their fullest potential or to simply fill the university’s social media feeds.
When universities spotlight high-tech purchases without equivalent transparency about academic outcomes, it’s hard to tell whether the technology is driving learning or just brand building.
This is where transparency matters. As a public university, Mizzou should have a responsibility to be upfront about major purchases including cost, transparency, what academic goals they’re meant to support and when students can expect to learn with them.
Robots should be part of relevant coursework, not solely halftime performances. The occasional publicity stunt helps justify the steep costs and keep donors interested, which is fine – but so far, the narrative around these machines has amounted to something like “robot briefly distracts crowd from gut-wrenching loss,” rather than anything academic.
Mizzou should use publicity and press releases to showcase the students behind the robots, not just the robots as shiny new toys. There is no need to manufacture spectacle; it already has students doing complex, thoughtful engineering work that would make for far better storytelling. The narrative shouldn’t be “look at the cool robot,” but “look at our students who made this robot so cool.”
Grace’s debut on Faurot Field made for great photos and an easy setup for jokes about robots taking over the world, but the moment also highlighted the split between how Mizzou uses technology and how it could use technology.
The robots aren’t the problem – the story we tell about them is. Spot and Grace have great potential to elevate teaching, expand research and pull hardworking students into the frontlines of STEM research. They could help Mizzou frame innovation not as a performance, but as a practice.
