ORCA at Edinburgh Science Festival

Unfortunately due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the Science Festival has been cancelled.

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We will be participating in this year's Edinburgh Science Festival at the National Museum of Scotland over the Easter weekend.

Dr. Alistair McConnell (University of Edinburgh) will be leading the 'Seeing the Hidden Environment' exhibit in the Hawthornden Court at the Museum on 11th and 12th April as part of a joint ORCA Hub and Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious: "Robosense" initiative.

Robot montage

Visitors will be able to interact, program and play with our Cozmo robots in a hands-on arena and then see how our Husky robot compares doing real-life tasks. Find out how the "Robosense" project is helping local school pupils learn to code and explore their surroundings using our extreme environmental sensors.

Find out more.

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.

Pupils learning to code the Cozmo robot

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.