Disneyland and Walt Disney Imagineering are currently conducting a series of playtests of a Groot robot audio-animatronic that will soon be walking and dancing around Disneyland parks all over the world. This top-secret project has been in the making for years now and is set to be revealed at the unveiling of the Avengers Campus in Disney California Adventure.

Lucky park visitors first got a glimpse of the young 3-foot Groot robot in 2021 as they watched the audio-animatronic robot take part in a Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Dance-Off during a playtest. Disney also teased the Groot robot at a virtual press event as a way to announce the opening of their Avengers Campus.

After showcasing progress on the project, the people at Disneyland and Walt Disney Imagineering aim to have the Groot robot roam freely and interact with people with the use of custom software.

Seeing as how Disneyland has a history of successfully creating and inventing audio-animatronics that wow people and defy what is possible, their goal of making a Groot robot that can convey emotions and perform specific behaviors that will make visitors believe that are really meeting Groot rather than a “sophisticated robot” is not far fetched.

Aside from creating the Groot robot, Disneyland and Walt Disney Imagineering are also developing Rocket Racoon, Baby Yoda, and Winnie the Pooh to interact with parkgoers at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. These are all in line with Disneyland’s plan of adding more sentient robots in their parks and using next-gen robots and ‘Blue Sky’ technologies to create an advanced emotional experience for all parkgoers.