The RoboBlox installation for the Brisbane Art Design Festival explored robotic design processes and creative engagement, reinventing the traditional breeze block as a tool to create rule-based story-making, which can be integrated into architectural design.
RoboBlox are robotic-carved blocks made out of polystyrene, using a hot wire-cutter. A joint project by the UQ Architectural Robotics and QUT Design Robotics teams, the RoboBlox installation addressed the current trends in automation and data exchange being integrated into manufacturing technologies, commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0. It also embraced the opportunities and predicaments of such technologies, integrating them into digital operations and production processes. By exposing the creative process of traditional elements such as breeze blocks, the installation aimed to demystify the technological chasm preventing manufacturers from embracing Industry 4.0.
The project is an adaptation of Thieri Foulc’s Morpholo Game, which involves a series of tiles that are arranged variously to create an overall pattern. For the artwork, the game was expressed as a three-dimensional matrix, with the artwork pattern inspired by the form of the Brisbane River.
Since 2018, the UQ Architectural Robotics and QUT Design Robotics teams have collaborated to produce works that implement robotic fabrication through creative and intuitive methods.
As part of the project, industry and the general public were invited to UQ's St Lucia Campus for a demonstration of the RoboBlox robotic fabrication process. Attendees were able to experience firsthand how the RoboBlox installation that was showcased at the Museum of Brisbane was created.
RoboBlox explained
| Lead researchers | UQ: Dr Frederico Fialho Teixeira QUT: Associate Professor Muge Belek Fialho Teixeira, Associate Professor Jared Donovan, Professor Glenda Caldwell, Dr Alan Burden |
| Project partners | QUT Design Robotics |