Category: update

On 16 October, Wijkcoop Afrikaanderwijk organised an open day. One highlight was a Wijkbot parade featuring four neighborhood robots made by schoolchildren.

The Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative used the WijkbotKit to help primary school children build Wijkbots constructed entirely from wind-blown litter and leftover materials from the market.

During the open day, Alejandra Huerta from Wijkcoop introduced the robots together with one of the children. The robots then walked in the parade from Gemaal op Zuid to the Grondstoffenstation.

On 10 October we organised a workshop at the Society 5.0 Festival at The Social Hub Amsterdam, applying a new workshop format.

At the festival, Smit hosted a workshop titled Transforming the Neighborhood Fabric with Hoodbots, exploring how technology can be designed to blend digital and physical realities in ways that empower communities.

Because the workshop was relatively short (75 minutes), we focused more on the underlying goals and issues while keeping prototyping more limited.

On 26 June, four teams of industrial design students at TU Delft presented their prototypes for so-called Neighborhood Navigators as part of the course Interactive Technology Design.

Cities of Things was a partner in the course, inviting students to think about what it would mean if robots became a permanent part of the neighbourhood and played a role in civic life dynamics.

Students were challenged to design Neighbourhood Navigators — autonomous robots intended to enhance community life by performing daily tasks and fostering social relationships within urban environments.

On 6 & 7 June, the PublicSpaces conference took place in Amsterdam. Wijkbot was invited to run a workshop making the role of robots in the city tangible, with special attention to public values.

We opened with a short presentation about the project background and offered scenarios showing ways the Wijkbot can fulfil a social and public role reflecting the values of residents.

Inspired by Asimov’s three laws of robotics, we formulated three rules as inspiration for human-respecting robots.

The two teams built on this with their own interpretation: robots that combine social functions.

On 6 June Cities of Things will be hosting a Wijkbot workshop at the PublicSpaces conference.

On 6 and 7 June, PublicSpaces and Waag Futurelab will organise the fourth edition of the PublicSpaces conference with the theme ‘Taking Back the Internet’. The two-day programme will take place at Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam. Through panels, keynotes, roundtable sessions, lectures, art and culture, we will work our way towards an internet where we set the rules collectively. 

https://conference.publicspaces.net/en

On Thursday afternoon, we will build three Wijkbots with the latest WijkbotKit, inviting the participants to express the role of Wijkbots in our city. Find more information on the workshop here. We will update the results via the Wijkbot website.

A team of IPO (Industrial Product Design) students from Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences created a modular version of the WijkbotKit in semester 23 of the 2023/2024 academic year.

A combination of sheet materials and connectors makes it possible to quickly create a volume with great freedom. The modular WijkbotKit is specifically designed for workshops, such as those at PublicSpaces.

The team ran a quick workshop themselves and developed three concepts, combining the best elements into the final model.

Elements can be stored in a specially designed case that fits on the Wijkbot platform. The basic version uses wooden panels, but cardboard sheets can also be used, making the kit accessible for all ages.

The 3D-printed connectors can be fixed with recessed bolts.

Today -19 April 2024- four teams of students from the master program Industrial Design Engineering faculty of Delft University of Technology will present their first ideas and explorations of the relation of so-called neighborhood navigators for future citizenship as part of the Smart and Social Fest in Rotterdam.

The teams are part of the course Interactive Technology Design and chose Future Citizenship as the overarching theme for this year.

Interactive Technology Design is a project-based course within the Master (MSc) Design for Interaction programme at the Delft University of Technology. At the end of the course students deliver “experiential prototypes” in a public exhibition. The prototypes communicate students’ designs, and enable exhibition visitors to immersively experience the designed products and services.

https://www.tudelft.nl/io/samenwerken/studentenprojecten/interactive-technology-design

The four teams will present their first prototypes halfway through the program during Smart & Social Fest in VONK, the innovation center of the City of Rotterdam.

The Smart & Social Fest features Exploring Future Citizenship, an exhibition showcasing the ongoing creative endeavors of over 100 Industrial Design Engineering students from the TU Delft. This work-in-progress exhibition offers a glimpse into the creative explorations of students that merge AI technology with innovative ideas aiming to redefine urban citizenship.

The exhibition stands as a testament to the creative process — raw, unfiltered, and in flux. It invites scrutiny and critical dialogue, encourages poking and prodding at the boundaries between the digital and the physical. Each prototype and idea is an interrogation of what it means to belong to a city that is rapidly recalibrating to the rhythm of algorithms and data streams.

From the expo description.

We would like to explore whether the Wijkbot can be a proxy citizen in a neighbourhood, and if so, what that means for neighbourhood life. Will a community of civic robots interact on ‘another level’ representing human neighbourhood fabric? Those are some of the questions we had about commissioning the assignment.

In this assignment, the students are challenged to design “Neighbourhood Navigators”, autonomous robots intended to enhance community life by performing daily tasks and fostering social relationships among residents. Imagine robots operating from a neighbourhood hub, undertaking various responsibilities, from grocery shopping to assisting the elderly, thereby becoming integral participants in neighbourhood events and connectors within the community.

The assignment encourages you to think beyond conventional technology design, prompting you to envision a future where technology enhances neighbourhood citizenship, fosters community engagement, and promotes a sustainable and resilient urban environment. Through this project, you will contribute to reimagining how technology can be harnessed to create more inclusive, interconnected, and harmonious urban communities in the near future. In your design explorations you can make use of the “hoodbot” prototyping kit.

Taken from the assignment

We keep you updated on the results!

Two teams from the IUXD (Interface & User Experience Design) course at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences designed concepts for the Wijkbot, with the Cool Zuid neighbourhood as their starting point. Both teams had already conducted field research in the neighbourhood.

We gave students this brief: In this assignment, we want to challenge you to think about the form a robot could take to strengthen social cohesion in the neighbourhood. You can develop a concept for a new robot, or redesign an existing Wijkbot.

After conducting research and an extensive ideation process, the teams arrived at two different concepts.