Robot vs animals

The Robots vs Animals project saw engineers collaborate with zoologists to showcase how humans have learned from the ingenuity of nature. A team from Bristol Robotics Laboratory and Bristol Zoo developed interactive events that explored nature-inspired robots, and gave public audiences the chance to decide which is best: the creature or creation.

The project aimed to generate a culture of public engagement in engineering higher education, and the evaluation indicated positive change was developing. The essential elements for success were a science communication coordinator and peer and leader mentoring. Female role models proved popular with women engineers, but were controversial for the male engineers – more information can be found in the published journal article.

For further information, contact the project leader, Laura Fogg-Rogers.