Celebrating National Engineering Day 2025
As the UK’s centre for robotics, The National Robotarium is proud to support National Engineering Day, an annual celebration led by the Royal Academy of Engineering to make the UK’s engineers and engineering more visible.
To mark the occasion, on 5 November, we are shining a spotlight on some engineering highlights from the past year.
Engineering Educates Careers Chats
As part of our outreach and engagement programme activities, a number of our robotics experts contributed to the Engineering Educates Robotics Challenge, a campaign to upskill teachers and inspire learners to think and work as an engineer using real-world robotics contexts.
The Engineering Educates toolkit contains masses of cool resources and activities to help inspire the next generation of roboticists, including Career Chats to showcase the diverse range of roles within robotics.
Meet Sean Katagiri, Senior Robotics Engineer
Meet Yvan Petillot, Professor of Robotics, Heriot-Watt University
Meet Blair Wilson, Schools and Engagement Lead
Engineering across oceans
In June, we teamed up with The James Hutton Institute, Freshwave, Scotland 5G Centre, and Boston Dynamics to test the efficacy of portable and private 5G networks for the agricultural sector. The project, led by Project Manager Ruth Plant, involved equipping Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot dog with high-speed mobile connectivity and programming it to operate autonomously or semi-autonomously across large areas of rural farmland. From there it was able to stream high-definition video, generate detailed field mapping, and transmit real-time data about the crops and soil conditions. Adopted at scale, robotics could help perform precision farming tasks, improve yield, and address labour shortages.
However, prior to the project pilot, robotics engineer at The National Robotarium Matthew O’Hara (pictured above, right) had to troubleshoot compatibility issues with the Spot platform and private 5G network. Through transatlantic collaboration, Matthew and Boston Dynamics Engineer Taylor Kuck worked together to fine-tune Spot’s connection, identifying firmware issues and implementing a solution in coordination with the modem manufacturer.
The successful partnership was highlighted in a case study, published on the Boston Dynamics website in July 2025.
Celebrating women in robotics on International Women’s Day 2025
On 8 March, The National Robotarium marked International Women’s Day by celebrating the achievements of our female colleagues who are driving advancements in robotics and AI, empowering women, girls and other underrepresented groups to help inform the robotic technologies of the future, and inspiring more women and girls to study and work in Computer Science, Engineering and other STEM subjects.
Coena Das, Robotics Engineer
Dr Maria Koskinopoulou, Assistant Professor in Engineering, Heriot-Watt University
Dr Hsing-Yu Chen, Senior Robotics Engineer
About National Engineering Day
National Engineering Day is a national awareness day created by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2019. This year’s event coincides with the release of their new guide ‘AI-Z of Engineering’, a dynamic resource that highlights the role of an engineer both, and in the future. Find out more and get your copy at raeng.org.uk.
