A standardised workshop kit housing designed and built by a team of IPO (Industrial Product Design) students.
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Category: update
This post is written in Dutch. Below is an English translation added.
Afgelopen Koningsdag hebben we een nieuw experiment gedaan met de Wijkbot, de prototype-kit van een stadsrobot waarmee we in de Afrikaanderwijk aan de slag zijn. Na afloop van het bezoek van de koning organiseerde de wijk een festival in het park. Met de wijkbot was een zogenaamde Verzamelbot gemaakt die hielp het festivalterrein schoon te houden. Het ontwerp en maken van deze Verzamelbot was gedaan door de bewoners van de denktank Cities of Things Lab 010.
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Collection Robot on King’s Day
On King’s Day we conducted a new experiment with the Wijkbot in the Afrikaanderwijk. After the King’s visit, the neighbourhood organised a festival in the park.
Using the Wijkbot, a Verzamelbot (Collection Robot) was built to help keep the festival grounds clean. The design and construction was carried out by residents of the Cities of Things Lab 010 think tank.
The goal is to explore whether new technology — normally developed by large tech companies — can instead be designed by citizens, with maximum freedom to determine its function. That is the Wijkbot: a robot kit made from simple materials.
After several sessions discussing the role of robots in the neighbourhood, the group decided to seize King’s Day as an opportunity to sketch and test a robot in the neighbourhood. In two brainstorming sessions the Verzamelbot was born, then built at a making workshop at Scrap, using an IBC container as base. The robot was given the function of collecting reusable waste, and also collecting and spreading stories from the neighbourhood.
It was a success: residents at the festival understood the function and sometimes made use of it. The ultimate ideal is that such a kit can be used by residents to develop and operate their own services.
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Workshops at Smart & Social Fest
At the Smart & Social Fest, neighborhood robots were used as the basis for two workshops: a walk with 20 people and 1 Wijkbot from CMI op Zuid to the Afrikaanderplein, and a session at Stadslab where quick prototypes were built.
Workshop: Walk with the Neighborhood Robot
Small autonomous vehicles — delivery robots, robot assistants, autonomous rubbish trucks — are increasingly appearing in Rotterdam and are likely to become commonplace within a few years. Will they transform our neighbourhoods into a sci-fi reality, or be adapted to fit the human scale of our communities?
Friday 21 April, we will discuss the progress of the Wijkbot project in a workshop at Smart & Social Fest, organised by the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Next to the discussion workshop, it is possible to use the Wijkbot kit to create an urban robot!
On Smart & Social Fest: https://www.hogeschoolrotterdam.nl/go/social-fest
- Walk with Wijkbot
- Build your own neighbourhood robot
This update was sent earlier in a slightly different form (and in Dutch) to the partners and participants in the LAB010 project. Read more on the backgrounds of this Cities of Things field lab project here.
The Cities of Things Lab010 project has been running for a year now since its kick-off on February 16, 2022 at Gemaal op Zuid. It has been a busy year for everyone, and also for our project. In this update, I’d like to bring you up to date on the progress and plans for the rest of the project.
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Autonomous Market Robot – Student Project
A second group of Technical Informatics students developed a version of the Wijkbot that can navigate autonomously from point to point using sensors and positioning technology, while avoiding obstacles.
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ThingsCon Unconference
The Wijkbot was also present at the ThingsCon unconference on 9 December 2022. Using the basic kit, visitors spontaneously created interventions — including in the café of the conference venue, the Nieuwe Instituut.
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Testing at the Market
The plan is for the Inzamelbot to collect leftover materials at the Afrikaandermarkt. We tested with a version of the Wijkbot carrying a stack of bread crates to see how market visitors respond.
Market visitors don’t bat an eye, and several engage with it. Even without any signage, the function is understood and used.
The reactions were captured with a 360-degree camera and studied afterwards.
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Dutch Design Week 2022
At the end of October 2022, a special version of the Wijkbot appeared at Dutch Design Week. For the occasion, we gave the prototype the name Wijkbot and launched the special landing page wijkbot.nl.
The Wijkbot was not only on display at the Design United stand, but also occasionally took tours around the exhibition floor. We learned a great deal from the reactions.