SXSW Gets Fully Interactive with a Robot Petting Zoo


RobotPettingZooTomorrow more than 30,000 people will descend upon the fair city of Austin, TX to attend the Interactive portion of South by Southwest’s annual technology, film and music festival. The SXSW Interactive festival runs from Friday, March 13th through Tuesday, March 17th and altogether will host more than 800 sessions as well as dozens of competitions, exhibits and networking events, all geared towards highlighting some aspect of emerging or evolving technology. With so much to see and do it can be difficult to know which events to take in and which to skip, but as with previous years, there are always a few standout Panels or gadgets that take the cake. In 2007 we saw Twitter burst onto the social media scene with the help of SXSW, and a couple of years later, we got up close and personal with Foursquare. Last year the 2014 conference made waves on these same social media platforms by live-streaming an interview with Edward Snowden from his Russian refuge. This year, geeks and entrepreneurs alike seem to agree that one of the hottest items at this year’s Fest will be its first-ever Robot Petting Zoo.

RobotPettingZoo1If the notion of a Robot Petting Zoo seems a novel concept, that’s because it is. Much like the goats, pigs and ponies that made us squeal with touchable, feedable delight in the zoo trips of our youth, the Field Innovation Team hopes that their interactive robot display will produce the same hands-on experience for festival-goers. Even the staff of SXSW is getting excited to meet the newest addition to the Fest. Hugh Forrest, Director of the SXSW Interactive Festival, says “The presence of the RPZ should help raise awareness of how automated machines are assisting in various disaster relief efforts. And, it will raise awareness in a SXSW kind of way – which means a lot of hands-on fun, excitement and engagement for all the registrants who stop by this area.” Visitors will have the opportunity to play with robots whose functions mimic those of humans as well as interact with robots that have flown above disasters to gather critical data. Going a step further, these ground and aerial robots alike can be touched, operated and even programmed by attendees. According to the company responsible for bringing the Robot Petting Zoo to the Festival, FIT (Field Innovation Team), there will even be multi-purpose robots on hand that are able to serve many purposes, such as flying while 3D printing. For a child of the 80’s like myself, it is continuously baffling to see just how much cloud computing, the Internet of Things and advancements in Artificial Intelligence are truly starting to shape the world around us.

RobotPettingZoo2Events like the Robot Petting Zoo further showcase why SXSW will likely never surpass bigger conferences like the Consumer Electronics Show or the Mobile World Congress. It has so much more to offer than just smartphones, laptops and new apps hitting the market. It is, as ever, a haven for oddballs, entrepreneurial spirits and out-of-the-box thinkers. If you’re one of the lucky 30,000 or so attendees milling about the streets of Austin, TX this weekend, be sure to stop by and make yourself acquainted with the technology that could end up saving your life one day; or, at the very least, be your newest computer-powered friend.

Topics: Technology News CES - Consumer Electronics Show Gadgets & Peripherals Inventions & Innovations

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