22nd July 2026

On 22 July, the Somabotics team gathered at Broadway Cinema for a dedicated away day reflecting on progress, celebrating achievements, taking stock of ongoing research, and exploring priorities for the next phase of the Fellowship.

The day featured three engaging sessions that encouraged reflection and collaborative thinking:

• Meaning-making in physical human-robot interaction with the Panda robot arm, drawing on the Embrace Angels and Facial Rover case studies.
• The Three-Body Problems: How does Somabotics challenge the field of Embodied AI? examining the Fellowship’s contribution to emerging debates in artificial intelligence and human-robot interaction.
• Cripping Robots, Queering Robotics, exploring the intersections of disability, theory and design in human-robot interaction (HRI), and considering how alternative perspectives can shape future robotic systems.

The day concluded with a session reviewing our ways of working, where team members shared constructive ideas and practical suggestions for strengthening collaboration and shaping the Fellowship’s future direction.

The away day provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on progress, reconnect as a team, and identify exciting opportunities for the next stage of our research journey.