Real-life droids from the Star Wars franchise stole the spotlight at Nvidia’s annual software developer conference in San Jose, California, on Wednesday (March 19).

Disney showcased two droids that can walk, dance, and express emotions, and allowed attendees to interact with them at the Nvidia booth on the showroom floor in the San Jose Convention Center.

“It can express happiness, it dances, but it can also express that it's shy at the moment… It’s these emotions – it's sort of a fully complete character that we were able to build. I think that touches people,” said Moritz Baecher, 44, a robotics researcher for Disney.

The droid also appeared on stage with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during his keynote speech on Tuesday.

Known as BDX Droids, the creatures have appeared in the Star Wars TV show “The Mandalorian” and in two of the franchise’s video games, “Fallen Order” and “Survivor.”

“You see not a mechanical system, you see a believable robotic character that emotes, right?” said Baecher.

Although not fully autonomous – the droids are operated by a puppeteer with a controller – the droids do control their own balance and gait, skills they acquired through reinforcement learning.

The droids have already interacted with guests at Disney parks and are currently touring various Disney properties. They also made a recent appearance on a Disney cruise.

(Production: Jeffrey Kopp; Nathan Frandino)