IPAB
Informatics
U. Edinburgh

Public Lectures, Podcasts and Media Coverage

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• [short 5 min summary video of research on Robot Planning and Control, 2010]
• 2012
• Science Alive (Nov 16): The Alan Turing Centenary Lecture as part of Science Alive Hong Kong organized by British Council, Hong Kong Education Bureau and Hong Kong Science Museum [link].
• British Council (May): Our research highlighted on the British Council's CUBED research pages [link]
• My Inaugural Lecture  (April 25, 2012) [webpage] [video]
• EISF 2012 (Apr 4-7): Live demonstrations of Robots (Variable Impedance Biped, Connect4 Playing Robot, Softball pitching Robot arm, Synchronized Dancing Robots) as part of the In Motion event of the Edinburgh International Science Festival (EISF 2012) at the grand gallery of National Museum of Scotland.
  [BBC News Coverage]
• EPSRC (Apr): News coverage at EPSRC about our cutting edge research. [link]
• BBC Arabic: Science Report [Variable Impedance Robots] [Football Robots]
• 2011
• Featured on BBC Bang Goes the Theory (Series 5, Episode 3, 29 Aug 2011) [Timeline: 12:35~19:00][viewable for 2 months in HD on BBC iPlayer in the UK and afterwards (and outside UK), low res version .wmv, .mpg4]
• EIFF Panelist (Jun 21): Panelist on the public debate 'Can Robots Really Have Rational Thought?' at the screening of The Terminator in the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Reel Science strand at the Edinburgh Filmhouse. Here is the link to the related Podcast produced by EU:Sci.
• EISF Public Lecture (Apr 9-11, 3 shows): Road to RoboCup- A Question of Strategy at the 2011 Edinburgh International Science Festival -- 3 shows with a capacity audience of around 120 per show at Inspace.
• 2010
• Xmas Lecture (Dec 3): 2010 Edinburgh Neuroscience Xmas Lecture on 'What can Insects and Robots tell us About the Human Brain?' -- audience of over 400 [webpage]
• EPSRC Outreach Video: Funded by EPSRC Pathways to Impact Award on the topic of Topology Based Motion Synthesis to promote awareness and understanding of publicly funded research [link]
• Public Lecture (Oct 4): Robots that Learn in the series: Seven Keys to the Digital Future (supported by: Royal Society of Edinburgh and College De France) -- audience of around 200, excluding online audience. [link]
• VideoWiki Podcasts (May 17): Public Outreach podcasts on popular robotic themes [Human Like Robots] [Mimicking Human Motion]
• EISF Public Lecture (Apr 3-4, 5 shows): Road to RoboCup at the 2010 Edinburgh International Science Festival -- 5 shows with a capacity audience of around 120 per show at Inspace, Edinburgh.
  Press Coverage: [BBC] [Scotsman] [Herald]
• EISF Public Lecture (Apr 16): The Uncanny Valley at the 2010 Edinburgh International Science Festival with Prof. David Perrett at Inspace, Edinburgh [Scotsman]
• 2009
• Podcast (Nov 10): Invited International Robotics Podcast 'Robots', EPFL, Switzerland available online.
• EISF Inaugural Lecture (Apr 5-6, 10 shows): ASIMO - Yesterday's Dream, Today's Reality at the 2009 Edinburgh International Science Festival, 10 shows with a total audience of around 8000 at the McEwan Hall.
  Video: [The show - 50 min]  [The making of video - 8 min]

Outreach Activities at Schools and Universities

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• 2013
• Computer Society of India - School of Informatics Overseas Classroom Project (Feb 18-22) in Machine Learning, Robotics, Algorithms and Computational Linguistics, Coimbatore, India. [link]
• 2012

• Dux Awards 2012 (June 22): Workshop entitled Robots that Learn: Challenges for the Next Generation of Scientists for Top Performing pupils (Level 9) from Schools around England in collaboration with Department of Education, University of Edinburgh 'Widening Participation' Team & the Russell Group. [website]

• School Outreach (Mar 20): St. George's School for Girls Science Day Presentations - Audience of around 60 children and staff from five different primary schools.

• 2010
• School Outreach (Nov 10): St. George's School for Girls Robotics Presentation [school website] - Audience of around 50 children and staff.
• University Outreach (Jan 20-23): Kurukshetra 2010 Invited Keynote Talk at Anna University, India [link] -- audience of more than 500 staff and students [The Hindu] [The Lectures]
• 2009
• School Outreach (Dec 11): Keynote Talk at Microsoft Research THINK COMPUTER SCIENCE 2009 event -- Audience of over 400 school children from Cambridge [streaming video] [.wmv dowload]