Beside themselves

Until a little before 10 a.m. yesterday, Rodriguez had never been to the museum. Before Saturday, when she and her mother landed at Logan Airport, she had never even set foot in Boston.

What finally brought her to the museum’s doors was a desire to experience a very meta moment: She had come to meet herself. Or at least her virtual self. Both of them.

A 22-year-old college student and model from Sacramento, Rodriguez is the real-life basis for Ada and Grace, the museum’s twin “virtual humans’’ who interact with visitors to guide them to exhibits, answer questions about themselves (Ada’s favorite color is turquoise, while Grace prefers white) and, sisters being sisters, occasionally bicker.

Rodriguez had seen videos of the cutting-edge twins online, but flew to Boston so that she could finally meet face-to-virtual-face and, weirdest of weird, ask herself a question.

As she prepared to leave her room at the Hotel Marlowe and walk across the street to the museum, Rodriguez was buzzing with excitement as she described a surreal journey that began when she flew to Los Angeles two years ago for what her agent had told her was just a regular modeling shoot.

When they arrived at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, “everyone was, like, ‘We’re so excited you’re here; this project is finally coming to life,’ ’’ she said.

Institute workers explained what was going on as they covered her face with tiny dots and ushered her inside a podlike contraption called the Light Stage that would begin to map her features in minute detail. (The Light Stage, which looks not unlike Darth Vader’s meditation chamber, was also used to create digital characters for the films “Avatar’’ and “The Curious case of Benjamin Button.’’)

Rodriguez was told that she had essentially won a modeling contest she never entered — dozens of potential candidates were whittled down to six before museumgoers were given the final vote — and that she would become the digital face of the computing wing of a museum.

When the moment arrived yesterday to meet Ada and Grace — they are named for computing pioneers Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper — Rodriguez walked into Cahners ComputerPlace and said, simply, “Wow.’’

There, staring back at her, were two versions of herself. Not only did they look like her, but they also had her mannerisms. Her gestures were studied by the team at USC, and as she looked at the twins doing a little sassy side stance, Rodriguez looked at her mother, Sophia Aguilar, and said, “I totally stand like that.’’

“They have her long mouth,’’ Aguilar said as she stared at the video-game version of her daughter. “And the eyes are really her. And now we get to see what she would look like with short hair.’’ (Rodriguez’s long hair was too difficult to reproduce digitally, so it was virtually cut.)

As Rodriguez sat down in front of Ada and Grace, staff explained to a group of schoolchildren what was going on and the significance of this meeting.

“She’s so lucky,’’ Soumya Potu, an 11-year-old from Shrewsbury said. “I would like to be created like that.’’

The first question she asked her twins was an easy one: “What are your names?’’ They answered immediately, which is rare as one of the biggest challenges they have is understanding different voices (the exhibit is constantly learning and improving itself).

Rodriguez, who is studying communications at California State University Sacramento, was not paying too much attention to their answers; she was more amazed at their movements.

“The voices are different, but the movements are my movements,’’ she said as her voice trailed off and she shook her head at her cyberchildren. “The facial expressions, the way they hold their hands . . .’’

The twins have about 150 potential answers to questions culled from asking the museum’s real tour guides what they are queried about most.

As she prepared to leave, Rodriguez had a little fun and went off script. She leaned into the microphone in front of the giant screen and hit them with a hard one: “What is the meaning of life?’’ she asked.

The twins looked at her a second, sort of shook their heads (using a gesture copied from Rodriguez) and told her that is something they can’t compute.

Maybe, they said, with a future upgrade.

Billy Baker can be reached at billybaker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @billy_baker.