Past Activities

Robots visit to Forfar Academy with Professor Barbara Webb in March 2011

The Forfar Academy was pleased to host two workshops organised by Branch and presented by Prof. Barbara Webb (Edinburgh University) on robots for a total of 84 pupils (1st-Year General Science and 3rd-Year Physics classes). The event was sponsored by the Institute of Physics Scotland and was a splendid demonstration of multidisciplinary science.

The pupils worked in teams to construct robots that responded, positively or negatively, to light depending on how they chose to wire up the wheel motors. The event concluded with a demonstration of the abilities and limitations of the robotic dog ‘Nao’ and the humanoid ‘Aibo’.

Science and a Snack – during National Science and Engineering Week

Dundee Science Centre was open with free admission after 3pm and provided a healthy snack to participating families during March 2011′s National Science and Engineering Week. For 6 days University of Dundee researchers participated in the events, sharing their scientific work with young children and families. Funding was secured from the Scottish Government in an application led by Dundee Science Centre in partnership with the University of Dundee.

SciScreen – 2001: A Space Odyssey with Dr. Iain Murray on 29th June 2010

The Branch held another SciScreen Event at Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) with funds allocated from the Scottish Government through the Science Engagement Grant Scheme. The classic science fiction film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ was shown at DCA and then an informed public discussion took place.

Our past Branch Chairman Dr Iain Murray, discussed the features of the HAL9000 computer and how during the last 40 years computing technology has lived up to; the visionary writing of Arthur C. Clark and the direction of Stanley Kubrick in terms of intelligence, speech recognition, vision processing, speech synthesis and speech reading. 80 people enjoyed the evening screening and discussion.