3D-printed robots from the University of Lincoln, UK, have taken their first overseas trip to attend Europe’s largest annual technology event in Dublin.
Web Summit, which runs from 4th to 6th November 2014, has been called ‘the best technology conference on the planet’.
MARC (Multi-Actuated Robotic Companion) and TAMMIE (Technologically Advanced Multi-Modal Interactive Entity), two androids created by Dr John Murray from Lincoln’s School of Computer Science, made guest appearances at the event.
Dr Murray was invited to the event to team up with Wevolver, a start-up company that aims to bring together open source projects and communities to develop new and exciting creative ideas.
MARC and TAMMIE, together with their fellow robot ERWIN, are being used to help scientists understand how more realistic long-term relationships might be developed between humans and androids. Existing robots lack identifiable human characteristics that prevent humans developing a bond with them.
The project team believe their studies into human-computer interaction could one day see robots act as companions and may also help researchers to understand how relationships are built by children with conditions such as autism, Asperger syndrome or attachment disorder. MARC and TAMMIE are 3D-printed robots whose design was supplied by the open source project InMoov (www.inmoov.fr).
Web Summit will attract around 22,000 people – including 700 investors and 1,300 journalists – and speakers include the CEO of Dropbox, Drew Houston; the founder of Paypal and the first investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel; and actress and entrepreneur Eva Longoria.
