This CRPA award will engage public audiences in a robotic experience that will help them better understand live fish, aquatic environments, engineering and marine science. The issue addressed by this project deals with enhancing the aquarium experience and learning several new concepts in biology and animal behavior. Each engaged youngster can control a robot fish or even a school of fish to experiment with how fish function and perhaps to mimic what he or she has observed in the big tank of live fish. One special App that is downloadable to i-devices allows the viewer to see what the fish sees and can control that fish.
This activity is an aquarium exhibit containing robotic fish. It is engineered so that external devices can keep the fish energized, but the key is that observers can actually control the movements of the fish remotely using the exhibit controls or their own i-device such as an i-Phone. This exhibit will be at the New York aquarium on the Boardwalk of Brooklyn where large numbers of people visit. Many of these individuals are from under-served groups.
This is a cooperative venture between Polytechnic University of New York, New York University and the New York Aquarium.
