Skip main navigation

Meet next week’s robots

Here we'll summarise this week's learning and we'll introduce the robots you'll be meeting next week.
A dog-like robot and a group of tiny robots which work in a swarm
© The University of Sheffield

This week, we’ve been introduced to our resident drones, a youBot and a pioneer robot who have all helped to demonstrate how researchers are developing robots that can sense, map and react to their environment.

Next week, you’ll meet our ‘kilobots’, a swarm of tiny robots that can work together to achieve a common goal. The kilobots will help to demonstrate our theme for next week ‘learning from nature’. The design of these robots was inspired by animal swarms who successfully work together without the need of a manager or a plan!

Towards the end of the week, you’ll also meet ‘Miro’ a dog-like robot who reacts to touch and sound. ‘Miro’ is being developed by the Psychology department here at Sheffield to demonstrate the potential use of bio-inspired robots in therapy.

How have you found this first week? Use the comments to let us know how are you finding the course so far. Were there any topics that need further explanation? Is there anything further you would like to discuss about Week 1?

© The University of Sheffield
This article is from the free online

Building a Future with Robots

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now