The topic for this panel discussion is “Changing colours”, inspired by the family favourite cuttlefish. Changing melanocytes, coats and plumages, fast and slow, is key to survival and attraction in a wide range of species. We are no different; colours play a major role in human vision and consequently culture as well, therefore we will also explore themes around the fascination with falling Autumn leaves and the fashion industry.
Like before, we would like the encourage you, the audience, to actively participate in the discussion, so we’ll keep an interdisciplinary atmosphere. As usual, the panel discussion will be followed with nibbles and drinks to inspire networking.
To explore this topic, we picked three young roboticists, interested in robopsychology and building robotic cephalopods. If you are into Asimov or the Reapers from Mass Effect, this is your event.
Dr Amy Ingold. Left school (very early) to work in fashion, walking catwalks in London, Paris, New York, Milan etc. Did short courses in make-up artistry at London College of fashion, and Art and design, during this period. Followed by BSc Psychology at Goldsmiths, MSc Neuroscience at UCL. Then tried Fintech as a data scientist for a bit. Recently did my doctoral research as part of the Digital Health and Care CDT. Looked at social and affective soft robotics sitting in the SoftLab at Bristol Robotics Laboratory. Made a load of fun and interesting things, with the highlight being a social robotic hat which took first place in a fashion competition at a leading robotics conference (IROS). Now doing postdoc in HCI, co-designing toys with visually impaired children. Also building the new field of Robopsychology, which goes beyond HRI to explore our relationships with increasingly pervasive robotics and AI.
Dr Saba Firouznia. The boundary between biology and machine—between the soft, adaptive intelligence of living systems and the rigid architecture of traditional robotics—is a rapidly shifting frontier in engineering and materials science. My research explores this field through the design of fluidic, multifunctional systems that actuate and respond with lifelike patterns. By harnessing Lorentz force in conductive fluids like seawater and liquid metal, we’ve developed a new class of actuators and pumps which are quiet, compact, and capable of complex behaviours. These systems integrate actuation, control, and chemical signalling in a single body, mirroring the multifunctionality of biological networks such as the heart, nervous system, and endocrine pathways. From silent underwater robots propelled by pulsatile jets to wearable soft devices powered by droplet-based shape-shifting, each platform enables a deeper integration of intelligence and movement in soft machines. This approach opens the door to a new generation of robotics—machines that don’t just act on their environment, but adapt, evolve, and coexist within it.
Mr William Lunt. Natural selection has honed the ability of organisms to detect, process and respond to information about the world around them. As a sensory ethologist at heart, I am interested in how the behaviour of animals is shaped by environmental information. The adaptive camouflage behaviour of shell-less cephalopods (octopus, cuttlefish, squid) is one such behaviour which demands the processing of vast quantities of visual data in order to coordinate the activity of millions of pigmented organs, known as chromatophores, distributed across the skin. In my PhD, I am adopting a three-pronged approach to understand how the visual environment shapes the camouflage patterns of cuttlefish, in order to inspire and design a wearable textile capable of adaptive camouflage. This approach utilises methods from 1) behavioural biology, 2) robotics and 3) mathematical modelling.