What’s it like to build a giant Rube Goldberg machine? How do you book comedy gigs when your only client is a robot? Working in the areas between art and science, social roboticist Heather Knight builds interactive robotic experiences. Whether they’re flowers that watch and react to passer-bys, or a sculpture with over 15,000 sensory fibers, Knight seeks to address this interplay, making you unsure of whether you’re interacting with the robot, or if it is interacting with you. She was joined on the 2011 Cool Jobs stage by her wise-cracking robot, Data, who performed a stand-up routine for the audience.
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Recorded June 2011; Posted July 2011