On the 19th of June 2021, we visited Aberystwyth University to take part in their brilliant BeachLab:relocated robotics event. BeachLab this year took place at the Computer Science and Physics car park due the usual Bandstand venue on the sea front being closed because of covid. So BeachLab:relocated was born, and we were ecstatic to be there.
From the moment we turned up at 08:30, we were in awe of all the amazing robot projects that people were unpacking. We’d had a long drive down, but we decided to get right to it, and started to set up our stand for the day. Our stand was between the Faculty of Business and Physical Sciences Outreach stand and the Aberystwyth Robotics Club.
As our morning went on, we had unpacked all of our robots and checked their wiring to make sure the car journey had not disturbed them too much. We had packed them in a box with as much bubble wrap as we could find, but still we found circuit wires out of place. We repaired these quickly and then tested all of the robots to make sure they were working. We took with us some business cards and stickers to hand out to people, and as well as our robots, we had a slideslow on the table so that we could show pictures of our build processes to members of the public as we spoke to them.
The robots we took to BeachLab were:
A.R.T.I – 1 (Aerona) – Tracked, Autonomous
A.R.T.I – 2 (Aures) – 2WD, Autonomous,
A.R.T.I – 3 (Aneira) – 4WD, Autonomous
A.R.T.I – 4 (Eirlys) – 4WD, Autonomous
A.R.T.I – 5 (Cysgod) – Tracked, Autonomous
Just as we finished setting up, a shout from the other side of the car park said, “can we all now be aware, we have the public on site, public on site, if you could all get ready”. So we started to take our places and got ready to show our small home education robots along side some really impressive university research robots. We were nervous because it was the first time we’d shown our robotics work to anyone.
As the day went on though, we grew more at ease. Many of the people who came to talk to us were impressed with our little robots. We explained that they were all autonomous and that they all had similar parts, and that because of factors like their different chassis setups and the different drive systems each robot had (4WD/2WD/tracked etc), they all reacted to their code differently, which made them all act uniquely. It effectively gave each robot a different emerging personality.
We explained that this showed how robotics was a subject that involved more than just coding and a microcontroller, and that there were lots of things you could change on a robot to make it act and perform differently. This could be the motors you use, what kind of drive you have, what vision system you use (ultrasonic, lidar, laser etc), what materials you use to build the robot, how much it weighs and much more.
We demonstrated our robots on the ground behind our safety cordon, and explained as we did, how the code was running at each point and what decisions they were making and how. We showed how our ultrasonic sensors worked (especially on different surfaces), and how they could be affected by other systems, especially outdoors. We explained about different microcontrollers and ran through some of the costs of building them.
The day passed with a lot of people (children especially), coming to talk to us and being particularly interested in our robots driving forward, stopping, looking around and then choosing their next routes before moving forward again. We had a lot of interest in providing the instructions for building robots just like our A.R.T.I bots at home from many children and adults alike and a lot of interest in making a ‘how-to’ for building a robot out of parts you can find at home. We’re now working on both of these things.
The day of course was also filled with many other robots and they were all absolutely fantastic (see gallery and video below). The outreach stand run by Tally, was demonstrating Lego Mindstorms robots and a particularly great M.A.R.S Rover kit, powered by a Micro:bit that captured everyone’s attention. Really impressive! The Aberystwyth Robotics Club were displaying a whole host of robots, which sadly we only got to see a few of. We did however get to see their Skutters from Red Dwarf, two amazing Cybermen projects, a range of Sumo Robots and at least a couple of teapot racers after the day wound down.
Two of the people from the day had also previously been involved with Robot Wars, which is one of the main reasons I was interested in robots as far back as 1998. One person was a team member of one of the fighting bots and one a judge for the show!
Further down the line was Dr Patricia Shaw, a lecturer in computer science, demonstrating wheelchair prototypes that were using LiDAR and voice commands with the aim of ultimately further helping disabled people in their homes. Dr Shaw was also demonstrating a couple of self-balancing robots, with one of them (at least), having a PID controller installed where the values could be changed to get a different response from the robot. On this stand there was also a companion robot that we’re told is so good, once you wake it and start using it, it needs stroking continuously.
Next were Aber Sailbot (not SailBoat as I called them a few times – oops), who had a couple of large model research boats present and were explaining about setting the boats up for autonomous and semi-autonomous transatlantic crossings/races. Part of a competition. We understand a lot, if not all of their work is open source, and it’s fascinating, so we have linked to them here (Aber Sailbot). Interestingly, we already have a similar sized RC yacht ourselves, and while we’d like to keep the one we have, we are interested in building perhaps a smaller autonomous boat to test from our little island. Coming soon.
Next were some of the entertainment robots, which included a lovely signed R2-D2 example, as well as Dizzy the Steampunk R2-D2 unit (fascinating to look at in depth). Here there was also an incredible underwater AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle), which you can find linked here (IQUA Robotics). A nice bit of equipment.
Dizzy was outshone only marginally by a similarly signed steampunk Dalek named Doris (#DivaDorisDalek) who was at a stand down the hill, welcoming the public. These robots are regulars at BeachLab and a lot of the Steampunk and Sci-Fi events around Wales. We’ve previously seen them at a Sci-Fi event in Llandudno for instance. You can find them here (Dalek Doris). Steve Fearn builds them and was the organiser at this event.
Past here was an absolutely brilliant diamond display, which explained a lot of the remarkable properties of diamonds beyond jewellery. One of the most interesting parts related to growing perfect artificial diamonds and then using them to deliver drugs around the body. Diamonds are perfect for drug delivery inside the body because just like us, they are made of carbon and anything bonded to them is delivered easily. There was also a stand with a sports researcher. We missed this stand unfortunately as we were so busy on the day, but we go to talk with the chap afterwords and his work was fascinating.
There were also a couple of visual navigation robots with LiDAR and self-driving abilities (Idris and Tryfan), that we hope to get to see more of in the future, as well as the Barnes Rover, which is part of the ExoMars Research Mission, something else we are keen to see more of.
It was a long drive coupled with a long day, however in addition to the many suberb robotics on offer, the people we met were wonderful. We can’t name everyone here, but we made a lot of contacts and spoke with a lot of people deeply interested and invested in robotics; some of them doing some really impressive work.
BeachLab:relocated was our first trip out with our robots and we came back with ideas that should we manage to complete them, will be very engaging for the crowds in the future.
Thanks to everyone who supported and facillitated us being there, and allowed us to show people that robotics does not have to exist only in schools and universities, but that it can easily exist at home and that robotics belongs to everyone who is interested and willing to give it a go. We really appreciate everything.
Below is our YouTube video for the event, please be sure to subscribe to us and give us a like. We also have a gallery below with all of our photos of the day.
Emma.
#RoboticsIsForEveryone
