Fairvale High School students visit MARCS Institute

The MARCS Institute recently hosted visiting students from Fairvale High School, Fairfield West, as part of the STEPS@UWS program. 

STEPS @ UWS is a Widening Participation program at UWS which partners with high schools across Greater Western Sydney and works with students in Years 10–12. 

Around 50 students visited the MARCS Institute's Bankstown labs on Friday 6 March, where Dr Chris Stanton demonstrated some of the research conducted in the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) program. 

Dr Stanton's research focuses on both Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and Human-Machine Interaction (HMI), in particular, how a robot's behaviour and appearance can influence people's behaviour, attitudes, and decision-making processes. 

Chris demonstrated an Aldebaran Nao humanoid robot, which is used for conducting research in both psychology and robotics. He explained to students how this research could relate to degrees within UWS, and how it might relate to some subjects in high school. 

The aim of the visit was to provide Western Sydney high school students with a small glimpse into some of the facilities at UWS, opening their minds to different options to studying, and showing that there's facilities at UWS to help with research. 

For more information about the Human-Machine Interaction research program at MARCS click here. 

A selection of photos from this visit can be viewed below.