Robot shines at St Kilda Film Festival

A robot designed and constructed by Ben Horan (School of Engineering) has a starring role in the film Lone, which screened at the recent St Kilda Film Festival. The short film, by the Victorian College of the Arts students, is a science fiction drama that follows the robot and his human co-star after the two become the last inhabitants on earth.
Ben designed the live animatronic robot in the Centre for Intelligent Systems Research (CISR) at the Geelong Campus at Waurn Ponds while he was a PhD student. He was given a brief on what the robot should look like and then was responsible for enabling the robot to perform using sensors and other electronic systems. 

The film has already enjoyed screening success, with recent reviews in New York describing Lone as a ‘Wall-E origin film’, although it was written and directed before Wall-E was released.