While WALL-E and EVE may only appear in movies, we all have the chance to play with robots ourselves!
Perhaps not everyone has the luck to experience playing with robots but the Robots Outreach team provides an opportunity for everyone to have fun with them. In fact, one of the highlights in the National Science Week is their robots exhibits at “Science in ACTion”.
The robots sing, dance and can even have a conversation among themselves and make presentations to the audience. What’s more, the robots are simply controlled by an app on a tablet. Children and visitors can, therefore, have hands-on experience with robots and make them perform different tasks.
The Birth of Robots Outreach Team
This exciting robots outreach team is founded by a volunteer in Questacon, Andrew Corson. He and Luis Bonilla were volunteers in the Technology & Learning Centre, creating stuff from their own ideas to engage visitors. When the centre was closed to the public, they moved to transitioned to volunteers in Inquiry Learning team in Questacon. Driven by his interest in technology and the desire to engage visitors, Andrew came up with the idea of using robots to explain exhibits and entertain visitors. He then built the first robot, Miko the Meccanoid®, followed by Luis, who built Mackenna, the second Meccanoid® robot.
The Meccanoid® personal robots are driven by ten servo motors for movement and pre-programmed functions. With their effort in programming, their Meccanoid® robots know over 3000 pre-programmed phrases, as well as capable to tell stories, play games and dance.
Together with another passionate Questacon volunteer, Imogen Brown, they started the first robots outreach visit to a church group. Later, Andrew and Luis were given the opportunity to demonstrate robots in the foyer of Questacon. The amazing performance of their robots has brought them more outreach opportunities. Joined by another young enthusiastic volunteer, Eleanor Cocks, the team has provided many exhibits and demonstrations in schools, Science in ACTion, and the National Science Week. They also provide programming workshops in Science Time in Questacon.
“I am happy to do this, not for Questacon, but for the children. I can see how happy they are, and how excited they are,” said Luis. Besides Robots, there comes… the Daleks!
Perhaps robots alone are enough to give visitors awe and fascination. But when the Daleks come onto the stage, they win the spotlight. Andrew has built seven Daleks between 1987 and 2012. They are based on the BBC television series Doctor Who in 1963. The Daleks have appeared in 13 stories and two feature films of the long-running series. In contrast to robots, they are travel machines for mutated creatures known as Kaleds from the planet Skaro in the story. Since 1987, Andrew and the Daleks participated in nearly 100 events around Australia, including festivals and conventions. Together, they have delighted thousands of children and adults. The Daleks have also helped the team to draw children to come over and learn robotics!
Together, they form the “Canberra Daleks and Robots”! The team now has about seven enthusiastic volunteers, who are always ready to engage with children and all visitors to the centre. With eleven robots, they have provided more outreach activities that engage with both children and adults.
“Robots are fine and you can interact with them and they can be useful for us… And I want to be a role model for girls in STEM,” said Imogen.
“Besides being a role model as a female in STEM, I want to get younger kids into many aspects of science,” said Eleanor.
The future of Robots Outreach?
“To build more robots!” said Andrew. He would like to build a robot from scratch, develop and have his own programs in the robots. This could further teach and engage children more about robotics and programming. As for the future directions of the team, it would be led and inspired by people they work with.
“I hope to encourage children and adults to engage with science and technology by understanding the robots’ capabilities, how they work and how they can be programmed to do things, but above all, to have fun with it,” said Andrew.
Robots and Daleks are of course amazing. But what makes it remarkable, is the enthusiasm and passion of the whole team of volunteers. It is the interests, the awe, the fascination that appears on the faces of children that drive them to build these interactive robots and engage the future leaders of our society to learn science and technology!
If you want to visit these fascinating robots or invite them for demonstrations, contact the Robots Outreach Team
canberradaleks.atwebpages.com and get prepared for fun and surprises with robots!
