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Besides smart navigation and innovative home products, what other surprises can technology bring us - the function, the form or something else? We will first broaden our horizons to see how robots are used in the nuclear and health industries. Benjamin will show us how a robot processes radioactive waste from a fusion reactor. Then Samuel will take you to a much smaller scale to see how miniature robots can move, change shapes and find the right location for health purposes. The night concludes with Dana’s talk and a question for you: Do you have the guts to live with robots inside your body?
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Can we build assistant robots, one billion times smaller than Alexa?
Dr Samuel Nunez-Pertinez
(Researcher, Nanotechnology)
Robots make our life easier don't they? Today we can get home, tell Alexa to turn on the lights and the TV, ask Siri to send a WhatsApp, and even guide self-driving cars if you are lucky enough to have one. What if I told you that miniature robots 1-billion times smaller than Alexa exist and we can program them to move, change shapes and find the right location? Come and find out more!
Living with robots inside our body
Dr Dana Damian
( Researcher, Automatic Control and Systems Engineering)
For many years we thought bacteria are organisms to avoid. We have now learned that our bodies house trillions of bacteria that play an important role in digestion and well-being. The future may be one in which we will live with robots inside our bodies, just like in the case of bacteria. There is an increasing number of technologies developed to solve various issues in our body, from identifying diseases to providing therapies. Come and explore advancements in bionic and medical technology, with a focus on their use in the gut.
Carving up nuclear fusion waste with robots
Benjamin Rae
(Research and Development Engineer, Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre)
This talk will show how you how to process radioactive waste from a fusion reactor using industrial robotics! It will discuss some of the interesting details encountered by the researchers while trying to use robots to cut up substantial amounts of metal, as part of work for the ITER nuclear fusion reactor. From using science to make very expensive tools last longer than 2 minutes, to how fusion produces waste; with bonus accidental summoning of demonic entities.
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