An exciting collaboration between the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and Department of Architecture and the Built Environment at UWE Bristol has received interdisciplinary research funding.
Dr Séverin Lemaignan and Dr Louis Rice have secured the funding within the Faculty of Environment and Technology for their project “A Habitat for Robotic Pets”.
They plan to explore, in a rather playful way, how humans and robots might share space in our daily environment. Around five small robots, like these from Anki, will spend a week in one of UWE Bristol’s café spaces (watch this space to find out when and where!), living their own life, with their own unique personalities, …and their own special ‘habitat’!
The robots’ behaviours and their small ‘houses’ will be entirely designed and built by students from both Architecture and Robotics. The project will look at how people accept, interact, and share their space with the mini-beasts. A lot of fun is expected!
Many thanks to Anki for supplying and giving permission to use the images in this post.