Marching Mizzou welcomed their 351st member on Faurot Field at the Nov. 8 football game against Texas A&M.
Grace, a humanoid robot, performed with Marching Mizzou as part of a collaboration with the College of Engineering. Grace not only performed with different dance moves, but also conducted the band’s finale performance.
The collaboration has been in the works for over a year. However, it truly came to life when students began working hard to program and code Grace in late July.
After a collaboration with the College of Engineering in 2021 saw the creation of the quadruped robot Spot, Amy Knopps, director of Marching Mizzou, was excited to see what else the two programs could accomplish together.
“We had the opportunity to introduce Grace, our humanoid, you know, robot,” Knopps said. “We just wanted to advance, push the envelope, do something new.”
Grace’s name is a nod to Grace Hopper, a significant pioneer in engineering. The engineering team wanted to honor a female engineer who has been instrumental in the community.
While Grace is not scheduled to take part in the rest of the 2025 season, Knopps said she is now a part of the band and is welcomed back anytime and will be invited to Marching Mizzou’s end-of-year banquet.
However, despite the success Grace had on the field, it took a while to make sure everything was in order.
For example, when collaborating with Spot, Spot came with a program called “Choreographer,” which allowed him to perform certain dance moves, like the running man, more easily. In contrast, Grace came with no program, leaving the engineering students to code Grace with a blank slate.
Another challenge that arose was Grace’s height. While she marched with the band, the engineering students had to ensure Grace would keep up to the 5-yard forward march stride, which is about eight steps, on average.
“She’s, you know, 4 feet, 4 inches tall, and naturally, her stride was shorter, and so we had to make adjustments there,” Knopps said. “We had to, you know, widen her hips, adjust her stride and adjust her terms of balance.”
Marching Mizzou twirler Deborah Brush also ran into challenges with Grace, but is happy she was able to partake in this opportunity.
“We were all nervous about knocking her over or tapping her with one of our batons … but everything ended up working out,” Brush said.
Brush has been a part of Marching Mizzou for three years. She is glad to have the opportunity to collaborate with other colleges at Mizzou.
“I haven’t seen a lot of other marching bands use robots in their halftime shows,” Brush said. “I thought it was really cool … [and] an interesting artistic element.”
From this performance, Knopps hopes students recognize the amount of research Mizzou offers and understand the importance and value of collaboration.
Knopps has already received great reviews of Grace from most of the student body, with many students in awe of how a robot conducted and performed with the band.
“They’re really proud of their peers because they saw how hard [the engineering students] worked,” Knopps said. “I’m excited that their peers have lifted them up and have communicated how proud they are of them.”
One student who has received a lot of praise is Martín Leija, a computer science engineering student who worked hands-on with Grace and is a tuba player for Marching Mizzou.
“It was really fun to see Marching Mizzou function from a different perspective and from a front-of-the-field point of view as opposed to a back-of-the-field point of view,” Leija said.
During the performance, Leija controlled all of Grace’s movements with a remote controller.
Leija was joined in coding Grace by his colleagues Van Grabner and Samantha Belano, who are all a part of the research lab at Mizzou.
The three are excited to continue working with Grace and exploring what she is capable of.
Belano is looking at programming articulation hands for Grace so she can do more intricate hand movements like sign language. Meanwhile, Grabner and Leija are looking to work with Grace and her ability to mimic movement.
Leija, Grabner and Belano hope students are inspired by the research they put into Grace and urge any students who are interested in research to try it out and reach out to professors.
“Just ask,” Grabner said. “That is the best advice I ever got. The worst they’re going to say is no.”
With only 16% of students in Marching Mizzou being music majors, Knopps is proud to highlight different colleges and students at Mizzou to bring unity to students.
“I like seeking out these different creative opportunities because I want to, you know, connect students to their college so they can be proud,” Knopps said.
