THA Cosplay Group at the Japanese Spring Festival in the Botanical Garden
Vordere Reihe v. l. n. r.: Melina Buchschuster, humanoider Roboter G1
"Sometimes visitors didn't realize that it wasn't a person in a cosplay costume but a humanoid robot," reports Melina Buchschuster, who launched and oversaw the project. The idea came to her several months ago, but it didn’t take concrete shape until Celina Stelzner, a student in the Systems Engineering program, joined Prof. Constantin Wanninger’s team as a student assistant. As a huge anime fan, she played a key role in selecting the anime and the characters.
Among all the fantastic cosplays on display that day at the Botanical Garden in Augsburg, the group attracted a great deal of attention thanks to Unitree’s humanoid robot G1. The highly detailed costume of the robot, which depicted the biomechanical being EVA 01 from the anime, was designed by three other students in the Systems Engineering program—Timon Kaebernick, Markus Böhm, and Lukas Muthsam—and 3D-printed in the THA’s FabLab. The textile components were designed and tailored by Eleonore Stegmaier, Melina Buchschuster’s mother. “Without her help, expertise, and passion, none of this would have been possible,” said the program coordinator for the Systems Engineering program. “Nor would it have been possible without my work environment at THA, which gives me a great deal of freedom while also providing full support.”
The three human cosplayers were played by Celina Stelzner, Justus Kopiske, and Max Streit, who clearly had a lot of fun with their roles. Following the G1 robot’s acting debut on the eve of the Japanese Spring Festival in the musical theater piece “V01CES//B0D1EZ” at the Bavarian Theater Academy in Munich, the THA successfully rose to the challenge of bridging the gap between technology and culture twice this weekend. On May 23 and 24, 2026, the cosplay group—including the robot—will be guests at the Hana and Spring Convention in Königsbrunn.
