Robotic encounters

Visitors are flocking to Treffpunkt Science City. Around 3,600 captivated visitors attended the Sunday Special 'Die Roboter sind los' (Robots on the loose) to see ETH Zurich's various robotics projects in action. The event gave guests a chance to not only learn and marvel at these innovative technologies, but also to do some experiments themselves. Last Sunday, the ETH Zurich main building came alive with mechanical whirring, humming and rattling. This time though it was not students but robots who took centre stage in the main hall, as they flew, rolled and hopped through the throngs of visitors, winning the hearts of the children in particular. The event took place as the second themed Sunday in the Treffpunkt Science City series. Researchers and students from the Autonomous Systems Lab and Robotic Systems Lab were on hand to present their current research projects and answer visitors' questions about robots. Human interaction with the robots . 'Could you please make some space' Many thanks!' exclaimed service robot Obelix as it tried to manoeuver through the hordes of children to give the visitors a tour of the exhibition. Obelix navigates using publicly available maps and could one day be used as an urban delivery service. Anymal, the four-legged walking robot, was another key attraction, although it is not yet ready to be used for its original purpose as a search and rescue robot. 'The hardware is available. But we need to improve the algorithm so that Anymal can move comfortably across any terrain,' says Remo Diethelm, a software engineer at ETH Zurich. One robot, Ibex, is already at work in the real world. In the hall, it looked rather like an oversized computer game with levers - but in reality, it is a remote-controlled, pilotless excavator. Programming: it's child's play