With the look of a futuristic bouncer about him the red jacketed robot patrols University corridors in a New Zealand by night and during the day lets the students take him to bits to assist in their engineering studies.
Known affectionately as Marvin (Mobile Autonomous Robotic Vehicle for Indoor Navigation) his simplistic lower half suffers from the same fate as the early Daleks as his ex-wheelchair motor and carraiage system are averse to uneven surfaces.
Up top however Marvin is developing the capability to show a repertoire of human emotions that include fear, surprise, happiness, sadness and anger.
Even more exciting is the increasing autonomy he is developing, Marvin can learn, adapt and make decisions, Professor Carnegie of the University said “We don’t want a simple binary `Go here, go there,’ but rather `I’m stuck, what do I do?”
His human-like mannerisms include looking at you when you are talking to him and nodding whilst you chat in a polite fashion and then there are the very robotic-type characteristics where his head projects out and towers over the object of his fear or cause of his anger.
There could well be a future for him on the mean streets on a Saturday night…
