Our two students, Kazuo and Aaryaman this year did an amazing job creating a robotic dog. They both achieved Nuffield Research Placements scheme and the British Science Association Gold CREST awards.

A robot dog may sound simple but it was a major engineering exercise requiring CAD mechanical design, electronics and software including some quite difficult problems for example, synchronism of leg motors. What was especially satisfying was seeing them collaborate often disagreeing yet always talking through problems and agreeing a solution. When they encountered a problem I would do no more than suggest a solution or a particular component or give them the tools they needed (e.g. digital oscilloscope). They would then dive in and leave me behind with their thinking. They were creative and true problem solving engineers. They will go far.

Oh and guess what they named it: K9 !