Sulu.be
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Last reviewed
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| Sulu.be | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Also known as | Slightly Overdone, Slightly Overdone Robots |
| Founder | Jan De Coster |
| Founded | 2007 (as Slightly Overdone) |
| Closed | 2024 (studio wound down) |
| Headquarters | Mechelen, Belgium |
| Industry | Robotics, interactive design, art and communication |
| Notable works | Steve, Walt, Yummy, Rachel, Robin, Herb |
| Website | sulu.be (now redirects to jan.decoster.studio) |
Sulu.be, also known as Slightly Overdone or Slightly Overdone Robots, was a Belgian one-person design and robotics studio operated by Jan De Coster from Mechelen, Belgium. The studio focused on building expressive, character-driven robots intended to function as social and theatrical figures rather than as industrial tools, and worked at the intersection of art, advertising, education, and public engagement with robotics. The studio's most widely recognized creation is Steve, a 2-metre-tall humanoid robot commissioned by the Belgian cinema advertising company Brightfish, which spearheaded campaigns in movie theatres across Belgium from 2015 onward. Other notable robots produced under the studio name include Yummy (2012), Rachel and Robin, Herb, and Walt, a collaborative robot deployed at the Audi Brussels production plant as part of the ClaXon research project. In 2024, after a tour of European festivals and conferences, De Coster announced the conclusion of the Slightly Overdone studio and shifted his work toward strategy and communication consultancy under the new identity jan.decoster.studio.[1][2][3]
Jan De Coster, the sole operator of Sulu.be, is a Belgian designer and maker who has been creating physical interactive installations since 1999. He grew up with what he describes as a fascination for physics, science fiction, and "hacking stuff," and started a small web design studio in Antwerp in 1997 before moving toward installations and storytelling. In 2002, he joined the Brussels office of the international advertising agency BBDO, where he worked on Flash games and physical interactive installations. During this period he also developed an interest in character design through the Pictoplasma festival, the international platform dedicated to contemporary character design.[3][4]
Slightly Overdone was launched as De Coster's independent studio in 2007. According to multiple speaker biographies and interviews, the studio's main focus was the creation and production of robots as a creative medium, alongside interactive installations for advertising, retail, and cultural clients. The studio operated as a one-person enterprise from its inception, with De Coster handling design, fabrication, electronics, and communication for each commission.[2][3]
A defining turning point came in 2012, when an advertising agency commissioned De Coster to build a robot for a retail campaign on a four-week deadline. The resulting robot, Yummy, marked the moment when De Coster's interest in character design merged with his work in physical interactivity, and from that point onward robots became the studio's central output. After Yummy, De Coster declared that since 2012 his focus has been on robots and their place in society.[1][3][4]
The studio's web presence operated under the domain sulu.be for more than a decade and the URL became a recognizable shorthand for the studio's body of work. Over the same period the studio name appeared in two principal forms in public communication: "Slightly Overdone" (used for talks, festivals, and Behance) and "Sulu.be" (used as the website and shorthand identifier). In 2024, after the studio was wound down, the sulu.be domain began redirecting to the new portfolio at jan.decoster.studio, where De Coster reframed his practice as a strategy and communication consultancy.[1][5]
In 2024, De Coster undertook a tour of European festivals and conferences, presenting retrospective talks about his robot work. The tour included appearances at beyond tellerrand Berlin 2024 with the talk "Never Let Go of Your Dragon," and at OFFF Sevilla 2024. After the conclusion of the tour, De Coster publicly announced that the time had come to end Slightly Overdone studio and to focus his energy elsewhere, citing a wish to step back from the operational demands of running a robotics studio. He continues to write, teach, and consult, but no longer produces new robot characters under the Slightly Overdone or Sulu.be banner.[5][6]
The studio was based in Mechelen, a small Belgian city between Brussels and Antwerp. De Coster operated it as a one-person production studio that handled the entire pipeline of a project, from concept and storyboarding through to mechanical design, electronics, software, on-stage operation, and post-event documentation. The studio was self-described as a "production studio that explores the horizons of human-robot interaction" with character design at the centre of every project.[2][7]
Sulu.be's work was distinguished from conventional robotics firms by an emphasis on narrative, personality, and emotional design rather than industrial throughput. De Coster has stated that "we don't see robots as they are, we see them as we are," arguing that human perception, empathy, and projection drive how audiences relate to machines. Robots produced by the studio were therefore designed first as characters, with movement, posture, lighting, sound, and naming all treated as elements of dramaturgy. The studio's stated mission was to "make robotics more accessible and attractive to the public" and to demystify the field by introducing it to non-specialist audiences.[2][8][9]
The studio offered three main lines of work to clients and the public:
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Robot creation | Bespoke design and production of character robots for advertising, events, exhibitions, and cultural clients. |
| Rent-a-Bot | A rental service that provided existing studio robots to events as hosts, presenters, or product ambassadors. |
| Robot School | Workshops teaching design, electronics, and character development to students and professionals. |
In addition to commercial work, De Coster taught Physical Interaction Design at Erasmus University College in Brussels from 2013 onward, was active in the Belgian maker movement through FabLab Brussels, and helped establish FabLab Mechelen in the autumn of 2015.[2][4][9]
The studio produced a substantial roster of robots and interactive installations over its operating period. The list below covers the principal characters that were promoted publicly and presented at conferences, exhibitions, and on the studio website.
| Robot | Year | Client or context | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yummy | 2012 | Boondoggle for Delhaize | Kitchen-themed character robot, the studio's first robot. |
| gEOF | n/a | Studio character | Listed in studio portfolio. |
| Herb | n/a | Lectures and workshops | Three-legged "hipster-woodsman" character built lighter than Yummy for travel. |
| NOR Bert | n/a | Studio character | Listed in studio portfolio. |
| Lemmy | n/a | Studio character | Guitar-themed robot. |
| Rachel | n/a | International festivals | Travelled to a festival in Berlin and then spent six months in Mexico. |
| Robin | n/a | International festivals | Accompanied Rachel to a festival in Moscow for seven months. |
| Steve | 2014 | Brightfish | 210 cm humanoid for cinema campaigns; named after Steve McQueen. |
| Walt | 2016 | Audi Brussels (ClaXon project) | Collaborative robot head designed for the Audi A1 assembly line. |
| Bradley | n/a | Studio character | Listed in studio portfolio. |
| Peter | n/a | Studio character | "Cyber Pumpkin" Halloween character. |
| Ted | n/a | Studio character | Listed in studio portfolio. |
| Brick Robot | n/a | KBC | Promotional robot character. |
| Nermahl | n/a | Studio character | Listed in studio portfolio. |
| Jeff | n/a | Personal project | Photographer robot deployed in Peru that posted images to Twitter. |
| Leo | n/a | Personal project | Robot exploring children's exposure to technology. |
Yummy is the studio's first robot, and the project that publicly defined Sulu.be as a robot studio. The robot was commissioned by the Belgian advertising agency Boondoggle on behalf of the supermarket chain Delhaize for the campaign "Proef van de Wereld" ("Taste of the World"). De Coster received the commission the morning after returning from Pictoplasma in Berlin and built the robot in approximately five weeks. Yummy uses more than 14 motors controlled by an Arduino board, has a fully articulated head and neck, and two arms, one with a hand for object manipulation. The robot's communication with the campaign website was carried over a wireless connection to a Flash Air interface. The Boondoggle creative team on the project included Dieter Vanhoof and Niels Schreyers, with Hans Kerkhoff as creative director.[10]
Steve is a 210-centimetre-tall humanoid robot created by Jan De Coster. The first concept sketches for Steve originated in the spring of 2013, and Steve's name is borrowed from the American actor Steve McQueen. Steve was brought to life in 2014 through a collaboration with Brightfish, a Belgian cinema advertising company. Brightfish commissioned De Coster to build a robot, and Steve became, in the studio's words, a "Brightfish employee." In 2015, Steve spearheaded several campaigns in movie theatres across Belgium.[11]
Steve was designed not as a functional tool or assistant, but as a character meant to evoke curiosity and connection. With its expressive yet minimalist form and calm, towering presence, Steve represents a fusion of robotics and theatre. The robot functions as a bridge between machine and audience, inviting people to reflect on how technology fits into human rituals and spaces through personality and emotional resonance rather than through efficiency.[8]
Steve has appeared at the Technopolis Robot Expo during the Easter break of 2018, and at various other events, exhibitions, and campaigns in Belgium, serving as a point of interaction between the public and the concept of humanoid robotics. Coverage of the Technopolis appearance included photography by Marc Aerts for the Belgian newspaper HLN.[12]
Walt is a collaborative robot, or cobot, that worked at the Audi Brussels factory for approximately eight months on the Audi A1 assembly line, where it helped human operators apply glue to vehicle parts. Unlike the caged industrial robots that surrounded it on the line, Walt was deployed as a free-standing collaborator that recognised its human colleagues by face, greeted them by name, and responded to hand gestures. The chromed ring around its face is a deliberate visual reference to the Audi logo.[13][14]
The robot was the visible end product of the imec.icon research program ClaXon, which ran from January 2015 to December 2016 and was co-financed by imec (then iMinds) with support from Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Innoviris. ClaXon's stated aim was to develop technologies that would improve human-robot interaction inside industrial production facilities. Slightly Overdone was responsible for the character design, the animation, and the integration of Walt's head and neck. The character work was the studio's contribution to a much larger consortium that produced the underlying mechatronics, sensing, and software.[14][15]
The ClaXon partner consortium included:
| Partner | Role |
|---|---|
| imec / iMinds | Lead research organization, project funding |
| Audi Brussels | Production facility and pilot deployment partner |
| AMS | Industry partner |
| Melexis Technologies | Industry partner |
| RoboVision | Deep learning image processing and gesture recognition |
| SoftKinetic | Sensor and depth-camera technology |
| Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) | Academic partner (imec-SMIT) |
| University of Hasselt | Academic partner (EDM) |
Key personnel publicly associated with the project included An Jacobs (imec-VUB), Patrick Danau (general director of Audi Brussels), Jonathan Berte (CEO of RoboVision), and Luc Van den Hove (president and CEO of imec).[14][15]
Rachel and Robin are two travelling character robots produced by the studio. Rachel was originally created for a festival in Berlin and was part of an anniversary exhibition there before moving to Mexico for six months. Robin was built later to accompany Rachel to a festival in Moscow, Russia, where it remained for seven months. The two robots were used to explore the concept of robots that depend on people for care during international tours, and to explore how character can travel across cultural contexts.[2][7]
Herb was created as a lighter and more portable character than Yummy, designed for use in lectures and workshops. The robot was conceived as a "hipster-woodsman crossover" with a three-legged base that allowed it to sit reliably on uneven surfaces during talks and demonstrations.[7]
In addition to the named characters above, the studio's portfolio listed a range of further robots, including Bradley, Peter (a "Cyber Pumpkin"), Ted, Lemmy (a guitar-themed robot), gEOF, NOR Bert, Nermahl, the KBC Brick Robot, and a personal project named Jeff that operated as a photographer robot in Peru and posted images to Twitter. Earlier interactive installation work, much of which predated the robotics focus, included projects such as Juice Bike, Viper Bungee, Mini Fan the Flame, the Sony Torture Machine, Pinecap, Magnolia Hat, Jump this Game, Awsomo, and the Nissan Jukeball, produced for clients such as Sony, Mini Cooper, Dodge, Audi, and Nissan.[2][7]
Rise of the Robots is a short film written and produced by De Coster under the studio banner. The narrative follows a group of robots in a dystopian setting engaged in typically human activities, narrated by a small robot named Ron who opens by referencing the television series Mr. Robot. Music for the film was provided by Scott Holmes. The film promotes a sister site, sorobots.be, used to host extended robot stories.[16]
De Coster used the studio as the basis for an active speaking practice. He has presented at international conferences, festivals, and universities under both the Slightly Overdone and Jan De Coster names. Documented appearances include:
| Year | Event | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Pictoplasma | Berlin | First Pictoplasma appearance. |
| 2014 | FITC Amsterdam | Amsterdam | Talk: "The Robot Soul." |
| 2015 | OFFF | Barcelona | Festival appearance. |
| 2015 | CreativeMornings/BRU | Brussels | 15 May 2015, talk titled "The Robot Soul," Beursschouwburg. |
| 2016 | Pictoplasma | Berlin | Second Pictoplasma appearance. |
| 2018 | beyond tellerrand | Düsseldorf | Speaker at the 2018 edition. |
| 2018 | OFFF | Barcelona | Festival appearance. |
| 2018 | FITC Amsterdam | Amsterdam | Talk: "On the Brink of Consciousness." |
| 2024 | beyond tellerrand | Berlin | Talk: "Never Let Go of Your Dragon." |
| 2024 | OFFF Sevilla | Seville | Final-tour appearance ahead of studio closure. |
| 2024 | Tasmeem | Doha, Qatar | VCUarts Qatar design conference. |
De Coster has also given talks at Erasmus University College Brussels, where he has taught design and physical interactivity since 2013, as well as at smaller industry events across Europe, Mexico, and Peru.[2][6][9]
Sulu.be is one of the few continuous robotics practices in Belgium that produced character robots intended for public-facing use rather than industrial deployment. Coverage of the studio's work has appeared in Belgian outlets such as HLN, in international design publications such as Inkygoodness, and in the speaker programmes of major European design conferences. The studio's work on Walt was widely covered in trade press during the public unveiling of the ClaXon project, including by imec, Design World, and other industrial-automation publications.[8][13][14]
Within the studio's stated philosophy, robots are treated as "a creative medium" comparable to film or theatre, with character, story, and emotional resonance treated as primary design constraints. De Coster has summarised this position by arguing that "thinking about the design robots could get is very, very important if we don't want to end up in a dystopian world." This framing places Sulu.be alongside other practices in social robotics and robotic art that explore the cultural, narrative, and emotional dimensions of human-robot interaction.[3][9]
Following the wind-down of Slightly Overdone in 2024, De Coster relaunched his portfolio under the domain jan.decoster.studio with a refocused remit. The new practice describes itself as a strategy and communication consultancy operating at the intersection of technology, research, and storytelling, drawing on more than two decades of work in advertising, robotics, and education. The successor practice continues to reference earlier robot work as part of its track record, and lists clients and projects such as Audi, Vitra, Flanders Make, the City of Ghent, Zelfmoordlijn, and the urban-forest campaign Groene Buffer.[1][5]