Will People Enjoy a Robot Trainer? A Case Study with Snoopie the Pacerbot

arXiv cs.RO / 4/21/2026

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Key Points

The study tests whether an embodied quadruped robot can function as an effective and enjoyable personal trainer for runners doing interval training.
The researchers propose SNOOPIE, an autonomous robot pacer that can tailor interval-training execution to a user’s abilities over a long-horizon, precision-sensitive task.
In user experiments, the quadruped robot achieved 60.6% better adherence to the target pace schedule than a wearable baseline (Apple Watch).
Participants were also 45.9% more consistent in running speeds with the robot trainer, and qualitative feedback showed strong preference for the robot on usability, enjoyability, and perceived helpfulness.
The work is presented as an arXiv announcement (v2604.18331v1) with additional materials available on the project website.

Abstract

The physicality of exercise makes the role of athletic trainers unique. Their physical presence allows them to guide a student through a motion, demonstrate an exercise, and give intuitive feedback. Robot quadrupeds are also embodied agents with robust agility and athleticism. In our work, we investigate whether a robot quadruped can serve as an effective and enjoyable personal trainer device. We focus on a case study of interval training for runners: a repetitive, long-horizon task where precision and consistency are important. To meet this challenge, we propose SNOOPIE, an autonomous robot quadruped pacer capable of running interval training exercises tailored to challenge a user's personal abilities. We conduct a set of user experiments that compare the robot trainer to a wearable trainer device--the Apple Watch--to investigate the benefits of a physical embodiment in exercise-based interactions. We demonstrate 60.6% better adherence to a pace schedule and were 45.9% more consistent across their running speeds with the quadruped trainer. Subjective results also showed that participants strongly preferred training with the robot over wearable devices across many qualitative axes, including its ease of use (+56.7%), enjoyability of the interaction (+60.6%), and helpfulness (+39.1%). Additional videos and visualizations can be found on our website: https://sites.google.com/view/snoopie