Workshop
In collaboration with Machine Wilderness Cornwall
On the 13th and 14th of November 2015 the first FieldRobotics workshop was held in Falmouth, Cornwall in collaboration with FoAM Kernow and some 25 participants from varied backgrounds to prototype jynnweythek godhviles (‘mechanical’ and ‘wild animals’ in Cornish) for specific local habitats.
The first day focussed on out-door exploration in the morning. Going out into the estuary groups were formed that connected to the landscape looking for spaces, niches or microclimates where the landscape suggests a robotic inhabitant. The afternoon was dedicated to developing initial ideas within the groups and evolving those to a first sketch on paper to present to the other teams.
Four teams worked ripping apart robotic toys, skinning mechanical hamsters, glueing electronics to vegetables and harnessing electricity from mud in a two day session of exploration and physical prototyping.
Day two was a day of physical prototyping, or as one participant put it: exploring future hybrid ecologies by hand. The resulting creatures were introduced triumphantly or hesitantly to their habitats at the end of the workshop. The jynnweythek godhviles prototypes revealed themselves with poetry and improvisation.
Workshop documentation text by Theun Karelse, Machine wilderness
