Edinburgh Science Festival
We are participating in the digital Edinburgh Science Festival by providing downloadable resources to help the public learn about our work.
Featuring Cozmo and Husky, learn more about the ORCA Hub's research whilst colouring in the robots and sensors used in our work. Download Colouring Book.
Offshore wind turbines are an important renewable energy source of the future but their location out at sea makes them hazardous for human workers to maintain and repair when something goes wrong.
Find out how the ORCA Hub is helping to make offshore wind energy safer for human workers using new technologies such as sensors and drones in our cartoon. Download Wind Turbines Cartoon.
Dr. Alistair McConnell (University of Edinburgh) was due to lead the 'Seeing the Hidden Environment' exhibit at the Festival as part of a joint ORCA Hub and Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious "Robosense" project which has been helping local school pupils learn to code and explore their surroundings using our extreme environmental sensors.
Unfortunately the face-to-face Edinburgh Science Festival has been cancelled due to COVID-19 which means that it will no longer be possible for visitors to interact, program and play with ORCA's Cozmo robots.
What is "Robosense"?
"Robosense" is a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Award led by
Dr. Alistair McConnell, which aims to explain and demonstrate how
robotics can be used to explore and observe the environment, empowering
school pupils to design their experiments using our Limpet robot.
During
the project, Dr. Alistair McConnell has been working with 12-13 year
olds at a range of schools across Scotland, primarily in Midlothian,
West Lothian and Fife. The first stage of the project ran throughout
October and November 2019 with groups of school children from a number
of different schools visiting Heriot-Watt University.
Participating pupils were given a Cozmo robot and several exercises
to complete in the Robotarium but were encouraged to be creative with
their programming, making for several interesting Cozmo dances! In the
afternoon they learned to program the Spheros robots and were given
tours of the different laboratories within the Heriot-Watt University
Robotarium. The pupils were then introduced to the wheeled Husky robot
and were able to use the knowledge they had built up throughout the
course of the day to drive and navigate Husky around and over an
obstacle course.
Over the coming months the Robosense project will hold a day of robotics manufacturing at the University of Edinburgh and will also be teaching coding classes at local schools.