A cheeky, chatty robot has bagged a job as university receptionist. From next week, the long-lashed lovely will meet and greet guests of King's College London.
Inkha - short for 'interactive neurotic King's head assembly' - will dole out directions and events information. Like receptionists across the globe, she will also comment on the weather and fashion faux pas. The gregarious robot was built by master's students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She is only a head and shoulders on a pyramidal plinth, but her eyes, mouth, head and neck move in response to interactions. Hidden cameras and infrared sensors detect movement and colour around her. Driven by nine motors and a small laptop computer, Inkha leans towards interesting people and shies away from sudden movements. She chats when people are around and gets bored when there's nothing to do. A third of all front-desk enquiries involve requests for directions, says Ann Ainslie, Enquiry Service Manager for Reception Services at King's College. Inkha will answer touch screen enquiries to point people towards their destination. Inkha should keep everyone on their toes too: if she doesn't like your clothes, she will ask whether you got dressed in the dark. And if she gets weary, she asks for a cup of tea, says her co-creator and independent animatronics consultant Matthew Walker. Inkha's CV is short. Her previous job - chatting with visitors to an interactive science road show - lasted for just seven days. But she will be working at King's College indefinitely, says Walker. "We just hope her motors don't blow," he says.
