Adopt-a-Robot @MARCS is a research initiative by the newly established Robotics Lab at MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney (UWS). The project is also associated with the Australian Research Council (ARC), and the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funded Thinking Head project.
The project attempts to understand how Australians warm-up to the idea of having robots in their home and work life. Seven groups of staff and students at UWS and a journalist have adopted an iRobot Create robot each into their care and will look after them for six months. During this period they will blog their encounters with the newly adopted robot on this blog, hopefully shedding insight in to the interaction between the human adopters and the robots.
The robots will go several transformations during the project, becoming technically more advanced at each iteration. These advances will take into account the feedback the robotic team receive from the adopters. In December 2011, the robots will re-unite for a performance at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
The public is highly encouraged to join the discussion by way of commenting on the blog posts, so we could have a broad view of how Aussies relate to the idea of robots in their daily lives. The project could have broader implications in design of robots, future policy on robotics in Australia and robotics research in general.
