Robotic Puppets and the Engineering of Autonomous Theater

Presented by Todd Murphey, Associate Professor

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern

Ovid's Pygmalion fell in love with a statue he had carved and, with no small amount of help from the goddess Venus, brought the statue to life! Bringing ordinary objects and materials to life through motion has fascinated people for millennia, and puppetry is an art form dating back over 5,000 years.

Modern day engineered systems, and robotics in particular, achieve animation through increasingly sophisticated techniques, including mechanical design, electronics design, and on-board sensors. These capabilities are synthesized using elaborate mathematical techniques encoded in software. What can the history and practice of puppetry tell us about how to engineer systems? Can we engineer autonomous puppets that can stage a theatrical production by themselves? And if we do, is it really theater?

Download the flyer or click here for details.

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
6:30—8:00 pm
The Firehouse Grill, 2nd Floor
750 Chicago Ave., Evanston 60202