puuet

Puet, or puuet, is a term used in contemporary puppetry and experimental robotics to denote a class of small, modular automata designed to function as autonomous or semi-autonomous puppets within a performance or interactive installation. Each puuet typically comprises a lightweight chassis, servo or linear actuators for limb and head movement, a microcontroller or single-board computer for control, power storage, and a minimal sensor suite that may include touch, orientation, and proximity sensors. The design emphasizes modularity: components such as limbs, heads, or control modules can be swapped or upgraded without rebuilding the whole unit. Control can be scripted in advance, run from a live operator, or driven by simple AI routines that respond to audience or environmental cues.

Puets are used in theatre, education, and therapeutic settings to explore agency, embodiment, and interaction. In performances, ensembles of puets can be choreographed to simulate complex bodies and nonhuman agents while maintaining a compact, portable footprint. In educational contexts, puets serve as hands-on tools for teaching robotics, programming, and human–machine interaction. Therapeutically, they have been explored as non-threatening mediators for social interaction or motor training.

The term's etymology is uncertain; it appears in circulation in the early 2020s among practitioners of modular puppetry and small-scale robotics. It is generally treated as a descriptive label rather than a formal standard, with projects differing in hardware platforms and software ecosystems.

Related concepts include traditional puppetry, animatronics, micro-robotics, and interactive art installations.