Publication date: 
2022/12/15
Impressive moments and the atmosphere of the robotic zoo, which was part of the Signal - Prague´s festival of digital and creative culture in October, are featured in this year's Christmas video of Faculty of Electrical Engineering. It further develops the tradition of holiday videos that began eight years ago and tries to present the best that was created during the year in the field of electrical engineering and computer science at Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

A few weeks ago, scientists from FEL brought the worlds of humans and robots closer together. Visitors to the Forum Robotum installation in front of FEL building on Charles Square were able to see how robots see the world through data visualisation on a screen. And with the help of electromagnetic sensors, they could even listen to the otherwise inaudible waves from inside the robots.  24,000 people attended the event over four days, from 13 to 16 October 2022! The festive video was prepared by Jindřich Soukal from But We Do It.

The stars of the October installation and the festive video, which received a bell soundtrack, were four types of research robots - for example, a rescue robot, a robotic spider and a robotic dog called SPOT. These robots showed people in Charles Square what they can do and then some. Experts from FEL equipped them with so-called scrubs, LED exoskeletons that reacted to human movement by changing colours. At the same time, their appearance referred to the animal kingdom, such as insect scrubs, peacock tails or butterfly wings.

It took the science team about half a year to prepare the show, which took on an almost magical atmosphere as dusk fell. For the installation, including remote control of the robots, they used electromagnetic sensors, microcontrollers, wireless modules and technology for controlling lights and lidars, which are spatial distance meters. The research team also used data analytics to provide interaction between robots and humans.

"Experts from the Department of Control Engineering, the Department of Cybernetics, the Department of Computers and the Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction of CTU FEL, together with designer Petr Vack, who designed the concept of the installation, collaborated on the event. The curator of the installation is Jiří Zemánek, who works at the Department of Control Engineering of FEL," said Radovan Suk from the External Relations Department of CTU FEL.

Scientists have previously decorated a Betlehem nativity scene and programmed a nativity scene

The current Christmas video continues a tradition in which FEL scientists placed a Christmas tree on Prague's grease tram eight years ago, which people could light via a remote app. In 2018, the aforementioned Jiří Zemánek and his colleagues decorated the Christmas decorations with mathematically designed patterns using the EggBot robot, which animated thanks to a strobe effect when the decorations were spun. In last year's FEL video, scientists programmed and animated a robotic nativity scene near the tree in the building on Charles Square. This presented the best that the faculty offers in the field of robotics.

Christmas videos of FEL CTU are available via the link here.

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