Nicolas Zambrano

Past Member

Nicolas Echeverria

Senior Graduate Researcher I

necheverriazambrano@usf.edu

1/13/2025→12/19/2025


Throughout my time at RARE Lab, I had the opportunity to apply my knowledge in robotics, electronics and mechanical design to assist in the electrical and mechanical development of a social robot for older adults, the design of physical protectives to mitigate abuse in robots and a 3D-printed mount to interface a GO2 robot with our fog machine.

This experience has allowed me to strengthen my communication, organization and problem-solving skills. My journey here has motivated me to continue into a PhD program focusing on soft robotics, where I am eager to apply what I have learned here. I would like to thank Dr. Han for the opportunity and his support during my time here!

— 1/5/2026

Hi! My name is Nicolas Echeverria, and I am a senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida. I am passionate about designing robotic systems that address real-world challenges, particularly in accessibility and sustainability.

This year, I am excited to contribute to RARE Lab. I am particularly drawn to the opportunity to work with tools such as ROS, Unity, and microcontrollers, while contributing to research that advances human-robot interaction.

— 1/6/2025


Publications

Xiangfei Kong, Rex Gonzalez, Nicolas Echeverria, Sofia Cobo Navas, Thuc Anh Nguyen, Divyamshu Shrestha, Sebastian Ramirez-Vallejo, Deekshita Senthil Kumar, Andrew Texeira, Thao Nguyen, Deep Akbari, Hong Wang, Hongdao Meng, Zhao Han

Bloom Preview: A Low-Cost LLM-Powered Social Robot

2026 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Interactivity

,

2026

News

HRI 2026 LBR and Interactivity Acceptance

One LBR and one Interactivity paper were accepted to HRI 2026!

Congrats Hong & Bao on “Evaluating Dynamic Surface Compensation for Robots with Projected AR” accepted (LBR) & Bloom team (Thuc Anh, Div, Sebastian, Hong et al.) on “Bloom Preview: A Low-Cost LLM-Powered Social Robot” (interactivity)!

2025 Fall Lab Lunch

The end of ¼ century marks the start of Spring, which we gather and celebrate at another lab lunch!

Undergraduate students Vlad Krukhmalev (12/2), Tu (Tony) Nguyen (12/16), Michael Klein (12/20), and Nicolas Echeverria (12/20) have joined RARE Lab. Vlad and Tony will work on AR in HRI. Michael and Nicolas bring their mechanical engineering expertise. Welcome!