Robofesta 2007
The 7th Robofesta-UK Annual Open meeting took place on November 1st in Milton Keynes.
Alan Winfield (UWE) gave a summary of the WwR network covering previous and future events.
Emily Dawson (UWE) talked about the progress of Talking Robots - a project investigating how people engage with robotics events and public attitudes towards robotics. Talking Robots is interested to hear from any roboticists or scientists who are participating in engagement activities and would be happy to be observed. For more information please see Talking Robots.
Colin Sauze (Uni. Aberystwyth) presented activities from the West Wales Summer School (see WwR August Newsletter) related to his PhD in long-term autonomy for sailing robots. Colin's PhD has led to his involvement with the Microtransat Challenge where 8 teams from around the world will race autonomous sailing boats across the Atlantic in 2008 (more information at Microtransat).
Joanne Walker (Uni. Aberystwyth) gave an overview of the Robots at the Bandstand event - an event that supported the Microtransat autonomous boat trials taking place in Aberystwyth harbour on September 3rd. More information here)
Jon Rosewell (The OU) presented the creative hands-on robot activities the OU robot outreach network have been doing over the last year; these have included themed activities and technology challenge days. For more information please visit Robofesta.
Kate Sim (Monk's Walk School in Welwyn Garden City) talked about her involvement with Tony Hirst (The OU) since attending the RoboFesta conference last year. This has led to a 6th form enrichment group within the school who will be taking part in the Robocup Jnr challenge this year, and to events for gifted and talented students. More information to be found here.
Mark Harmsworth (Rhosnesni High School, Wrexham) gave a summary of the Robot Garden Project. Funded through a Royal Society Partnership Grant, Mark worked with members of the WWR team, and 25 Year 8 and 9 pupils to design and build robot flowers, robot bugs and a backdrop to accompany it.
Sam Wane (Uni. Stafford) presented his involvement with the Engineering Everywhere Project. Engineering Everywhere is an epsrc funded project aimed at making engineering and engineers a transparent feature in the examined curriculum of young people. For more information see Engineering the Curriculum.
Ashley Green (The OU) summarised the activities he has been involved with as part of RoboFesta-UK, this included Robocup Jnr, Roberta goes EU, Aurora ExoMars mission, the Lego Mindstorms development program, FLL, Robot Thought and a variety of festivals and events. Ashley also talked of hopes to gain funding for a Robot Rescue Research Network.
Karen Bultitude (UWE) presented the best bits of Robot Thought - an entertaining science show format, delivered in 8 different venues, designed to challenge and stimulate public thinking about the latest developments in robotics. Karen provided an overview of the project and entertained us all with practical demonstrations from a number of the shows. More information on the project can be found here.
Claire Rocks (WwR Coordinator) ran a facilitated session to foster future collaborations. The output of this session can be found here.
Laura Grant (WwR external evaluator) did a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the Walking with Robots network. This analysis will used in part to guide the direction of WwR in Year 2.
There was also time during the day for exhibitors to show off robots, kits and resources they had used, made or found useful for their activities.