Mesmer

Grandparents and toddlers singing, laughing and creating memories together

Our RoboThespian has been greeting visitors at the entrance to Carnegie Science Center’s “RoboWorld™” for over a decade, introducing the gallery, explaining robot basics, conducting sing-alongs, and cracking bad jokes to hundreds of thousands of guests. Technically, the ease of maintenance and the responsivity of the Engineered Arts team ensure his ‘down time’ has been minimal; any software glitches (few and far between) or updates can be handled remotely, and the ordering and delivery of occasional replacement parts is swift and efficient. And the interface kiosk for guest use is intuitive and engaging; my offices are right off the RoboWorld gallery, so I have the benefit of seeing a wide demographic of visitors enthralled by his antics. Especially satisfying is seeing multi-generation engagement – grandparents and toddlers signing, laughing and creating memories together. “Andy Roid” (a nod to both our founder Andrew Carnegie and ‘androids’) is a favorite of both staff and guests. 

Dennis Bateman, Director, Carnegie Science Center

I cannot thank Engineered Arts enough!

"I cannot thank Engineered Arts enough for their fabulous robot. The robot itself is top quality design and engineering, and we are constantly surprised by the elegance of the design and the quality of the make and materials. It is astonishingly reliable. The technical support is as outstanding as the robot, with experts able to direct and assist with the running on every detail of the robot. We were concerned about having enough technical ability to own a robot. We needn't have worried. The interface is extremely intuitive, allowing us to really be creative with full confidence in the robot and the supporting software. Our robot is very well received by people, and allows us full freedom in our creative industry. Both the robot and the team are brilliant, and I cannot recommend highly enough."

Lucy Seal, Curator of Ai-Da Robot. The world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist

We were fantastically supported by Marcus

"We worked with Engineered Arts to develop custom content for our RoboThespian, including our own touchscreen interface design. We were fantastically supported by Marcus and the team throughout the customisation process. We were able to create the baseline content wholly through user testing ideas with online participants using Virtual RoboThespian via video calls. It was a really useful tool for engaging with users virtually during the pandemic and allowed us to tailor the content in terms of both script, tone and movement. The whole process gave us a fantastic amount of freedom to create something that hasn’t existed in a science centre before! Our early visitors have said "It’s fascinating to see a human sized robot" and "He's really visually striking this is the exhibit that resonates the most""

Rose O’Reilly, Content Developer, We The Curious, Bristol UK

We were very taken by RoboThespian

"When I came back to Oxford Brookes, I started to think about and plan our research in robotics. I started to look around what was available in terms of current robotics technology when I came across RoboThespian and I thought he was amazing! He was very expressive, he could move his arms, hands and his head to gesture. The eyes in particular are very expressive because they're LCD screens so we've got a great deal of freedom in portraying sadness and happiness and all sorts of emotions through them. I was invited to visit Engineer Arts and it was a fantastic experience. It was like walking on to the set of iRobot. We were very taken by RoboThespian. I then came back to Oxford Brookes and talked to senior colleagues here at the University, we immediately said we should get one"

Professor Nigel Cook, Oxford Brookes. Oxford

“Engineered Arts have been very supportive”

"As far as I have worked with various robotic platforms, RoboThespian is a unique one in terms of its design and features. The well-designed and elegant structure of RoboThespian allows mimicking human movements in a seamless way. The simplicity of its backend system in programming complex tasks has enabled us to teach students to program complex movements scenarios and behaviours. The team of Engineered Arts have been very supportive in guiding us through the installation and programming steps. Due to these facts, I would highly recommend Engineered Arts technologies for any robotics lab"

Dr. Abdullah Almeshal, College of Technological Studies – RAiLab, Kuwait.