What robots get up to when Roland Siegwart is not at home
What do robots do when the master of their house – ETH Vice President and robot expert Roland Siegwart – is away from home? The youth TV channel “joiz” has shed some light on this.
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A great deal has already been written about how to spark young people’s enthusiasm in engineering and encourage them to study technical subjects at ETH Zurich. In the programme “The Ing Thing” broadcast by social TV channel joiz last Thursday evening, Roland Siegwart highlighted the fact that working with intelligent machines is simply good fun, and that the environment in the robotics lab allows researchers to take a creative approach to their work.
In a playfully lighthearted way – and with a dash of humour – the Vice President of ETH Zurich and Professor of Autonomous Systems explained that, nowadays, robots are basically small, friendly companions. “The robot is the ultimate machine. It can do anything. It’s intelligent, it can sense things and it can interact with its environment – like a little dog,” said Siegwart.
But that’s not all: Siegwart’s robots become active as soon as their “master” leaves the house: at Christmas time, for example, they put on veritable little parades. The joiz editorial team were clearly as amused by this as Siegwart himself.
joiz is a Swiss online social TV channel aimed at a young audience. The programme “The Ing Thing” is broadcast live and explores the wonders of engineering. Having previously been shown on 28 August and 4 September, the next edition of the show is due to appear between 5.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. CET on 11 September. The programme is produced in collaboration with the organisation “Engineers Shape our Future IngCH”.
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