Last month, I went to York to build a robot. I came back with a robot, a tiny trophy-shaped sense of achievement, and somehow a few new friends.

From 25th-27th August, I joined the UK RAS STEPS MicroMaze Robot Hackathon at the Institute for Safe Autonomy, University of York.

The brief sounded simple: build a small autonomous robot, then make it survive increasingly difficult mazes. Simple… right? Until you actually have to build one.

Over three days, Emily, Joolz and I went from a box of parts and a laser-cut chassis to a robot that could actually make its way through a maze. There were sensors, motors, Raspberry Pi Pico W, MicroPython, plenty of debugging and, of course, the occasional, “Why is it doing THAT?”

But to be honest, looking back, the technical part wasn’t even my favourite bit. Somewhere between building, debugging, failed runs and laughing at our own mistakes, the three of us went from a team that had just met to people I now genuinely consider friends.

And on the final day, Michael Smith, Eugen Guritanu, Emily, Joolz and I spent the day wandering around York, eating, talking and generally making the most of being there. It’s funny how quickly that happens at these events. You arrive knowing very few people. A few days later, you’re discussing robots, arguing about how to fix things, sharing stories and making plans to meet again.

We also got to spend some time at the Institute for Safe Autonomy, which was a brilliant setting for the hackathon. There’s something quite fitting about asking a room full of technical people to make a tiny autonomous robot behave itself.

A huge thank you to (always witty ‘n’ playful) Rob Woolley for organising the hackathon, and to the Institute for Safe Autonomy, University of York and the wider UK RAS STEPS team for creating these opportunities for Research Technical Professionals.

And finally Emily, Joolz, Michael and Eugen, I’m very glad a robotics hackathon turned into a York friendship trip :-)

For now, I’ll leave you with a few tiny robots, some good York memories, and another reminder that sometimes the best things you build at these events aren’t always the things you planned to build.

From 25–27 August, UK RAS STEPS members came together at the University of York’s Institute for Safe Autonomy for a three-day Micromaze Robot Hackathon.

Working in teams, participants were challenged to design, build and program autonomous robots capable of navigating a series of increasingly complex mazes. Each team used a custom Raspberry Pi Pico W robotics platform, designed a laser-cut chassis, integrated motors and sensors, and developed its control software in MicroPython.

Participants had access to ultrasonic, infrared and time-of-flight sensors, alongside laser-cutting and 3D-printing facilities. The final challenge considered maze performance, collision avoidance, robot design, code quality, wireless control and any innovative features developed by the teams.

The programme also included a tour of the Institute for Safe Autonomy, collaborative development sessions, final presentations and robot demonstrations.

Beyond the technical challenge, the Hackathon helped test an activity that could be developed into future continuing professional development for people new to robotics or an outreach programme for children and students.

Thank you to Rob Woolley, the University of York team and everyone who participated and contributed to the event.

By Umar Farooq

That was one of the questions at the heart of my last week (20th-24th July) at the Imperial Robotics Summer School, hosted at Imperial College, London; a week that sharpened my thinking and pushed me to look at robotics problems from angles I don’t usually get to in my day-to-day work.

The summer school brought together emerging researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across the robotics community for an intensive, hands-on programme. I came away having learned a huge amount, from expert-led lectures on robot kinematics, dynamics, sensing and control, and robot learning, through to specialised sessions on aerial robotics, robot intelligence, surgical robot vision, bio-inspired sensing and control, and personal assistive robotics.

One of the standout parts of the week was getting into Imperial’s robotics labs themselves, seeing research up close across adaptive and intelligent robotics, aerial robotics, robotic surgery, manipulation and touch, and assistive robotics. Alongside researchers from across the UK and beyond, we dug into real-world robotics challenges spanning quadruped locomotion, vision-based robot learning, tactile sensing, and healthcare applications.

Our group project focused on enabling a robot to interact with several people at once, rather than the typical one-to-one interaction most social robots are designed around. We worked on detecting the active speaker in real time, tracking each person’s identity through the interaction, and generating natural gaze and head-turn behaviour so the robot felt genuinely attentive to the whole group rather than just one person. Along the way, I got a much clearer picture of the full pipeline from language to motion, how an LLM translates natural intent into structured commands, how those get mapped to high-level robot functions, how inverse kinematics turns that into joint trajectories, and how it all finally reaches the actuators through the robot’s control stack. It was a great, hands-on introduction to just how hard multi-party human-robot interaction really is. and I came away with a much deeper appreciation for the interdisciplinary side of robotics research.

None of this would have been possible without UK RAS STEPS, who funded my place as one of five RTPs selected to attend. Beyond this summer school, UK RAS STEPS has been really helpful for my development, with different workshops along the way that I’ve learned a lot from. A special thank you also to Marie Daniels for her support and guidance throughout the application process.

Thanks as well to the wider Imperial College, London team, the lecturers, researchers, and fellow participants, for a week full of great conversations and a real learning environment.