This is supplemental information to our official website. Here, we provide information early, or a bit more information that may be of interest.

Semester start: Monday 19th January 12:30

See last semester projects here.

Project 1: Participatory Design for social robots for hospitalised children

(Please check pictures from the previous «Teddy» project at the bottom of this page: https://uni.oslomet.no/eps/semester-structure/ )

Hospitalisation is a stressful experience for children, with the following fears and concerns: unfamiliar environment, separation from parents and family, investigations and treatments, and a loss of self-determination.

Previous research has shown that animal therapy is effective in improving the well-being of children in hospitals; however, this approach is expensive, and hygiene concerns make it problematic. Robots have the potential to be an alternative to animal therapy, where they provide comfort and companionship for children.

The foundation Stiftelsen Sykehusbarna develops plush bears for children in Norwegian hospitals to give them comfort, distraction, and a sense of accomplishment. Studies suggest that social robots might have the potential for improving children’s well-being in healthcare settings when the child feels safe with the robot. Such robots have been applied for distraction during medical procedures, emotional support for dealing with disease, and support of well-being during a hospital stay. However, current commercial robots often don’t fulfil children’s particular needs. There is a need for more knowledge about how robots can be designed to influence children and their families. Using a Participatory Design approach, we will invite children and their parents to prototyping workshops where we will co-create social robots. Based on the workshops, we can further develop a robot prototype and test it with the users.

Supervisor: Claudia Magdalena Sikora, PhD Candidate; Weiqin Chen, professor

Project 2: Promoting Gender Inclusive Digital Innovation Ecosystems

Still in progress! We are working on this one.

Are you passionate about ensuring digital innovation is as impactful as possible? Students from engineering and product development, and/or who are passionate about entrepreneurship, equality or research wanted! Help us understand gender inequity in technical innovation! Why? For the sake of sustainable and impactful innovation!  

Innovation is believed to be the sine-quo-non of significant wealth generation in an economy. Gender inequality in innovation has profound negative implications for all both from an economic and a sociopolitical point of view. Any ecosystem in which ideas develop and are implemented, should have gender inclusive characteristics that are enduring. The process of innovation, and the products and services which evolve from it, should integrate gender and diversity to reflect the pluralism and intersectional identities all societies reflect.  

Little is known about how gender inequalities germinate and how to combat them. This research proposes an anthropological approach to examining why gender inequality persists and the means via which gender-balanced digital innovation ecosystems may be promoted. Factors which inhibit or promote gender equity will also be researched. 

We have already commenced a systematic literature review (SLR) and a related interview process to respond to the research questions. Students will be expected to read various journal articles potentially associated with this research, to decide on their inclusion in the SLR. The finalised SLR will expose questions which remain unanswered in this research arena. The existing interview instrument will then be revised as needed to probe any outstanding unaddressed issues. Students will subsequently have the exciting opportunity to interview individuals involved in technical innovation! 

Desired competencies: 

This project is at the intersection of innovation, sociology, technology, gender, diversity, equity and development studies. A key requirement is hence a healthy interest in the above fields and a passion for promoting justice and equality! 

Supervisor: Ayanna T. Samuels, PhD Candidate

Project 3: Biomimetic Octopus-Inspired Manipulator System

The goal of this project is to develop a biomimetic octopus-inspired robotic system, starting from a single engineered tentacle and scaling up to a full “body” with eight coordinated tentacles. Each tentacle should emulate key functional aspects of octopus arms such as compliance, multi-degree-of-freedom motion, and adaptable gripping. 

Design Requirements:

• Tentacle Module: Design and prototype at least one functional tentacle with segmented or continuum motion. Actuation can be hydraulic, pneumatic, cable-driven, thermally actuated, or other justified mechanisms.

• Full-Body Architecture: Propose and, as far as feasible, prototype a central “body” structure that mechanically and functionally integrates eight tentacles into a coordinated system.
• Sensing and Feedback: Integrate basic sensing (position, pressure, force, contact, or simple vision) to enable at least one closed-loop behaviour such as controlled gripping force, obstacle avoidance, or position tracking.
• Control and Operation Modes: Implement a control concept that allows both manual and semi-automated operation of the tentacles (joystick inputs, pre-programmed motion patterns, or simple task routines). Highlight how the control could scale from one tentacle to eight.
• System-Level Engineering: Explicitly document how concepts from electronics, thermodynamics, hydraulics/pneumatics, and machine-systems design have been used to address efficiency, power supply, cooling/heating, safety, and maintainability.
• Use-Case Scenario: Define at least one realistic application scenario (e.g., underwater inspection, handling fragile objects, search-and-rescue in confined spaces) and show how your design choices support this use case.

Most of the practical work should be planned to take place at the Makerspace, with a possibility of under-water testing at OceanLab. Students are responsible for coordinating access and scheduling both among themselves and in line with Makerspace availability. 

Supervisor: Fikriye Kaya, phd

Project 4: A system for reducing environmental effects of everyday digital consumption 

Did you know that the 5 apps running in the background of your smart phone equals the CO2 emission of a gasoline-fueled car driving 500 km? Do you know the carbon energy footprint of a prompt on ChatGPT or Gemini? Probably not. For most people, it is difficult to understand the environmental footprint related to their digital consumption. This is not least due to the complex ICT infrastructure that is needed to support people’s private use of digital technologies. It is also difficult to know what to do to reduce the the environmental impact of our everyday digital consumption. To address this, many apps have been created to help you track and offset your carbon emissions, but these also produce CO2 emissions. 

Make proof of concept for a system that raises awareness and helps people to cleverly reduce their unsustainable digital consumption.

Supervisor: Henry Nsaidzeka Mainsah, professor

Project 5: A continuation of wind-tunnel project

Spring 2025, EPS students constructed an addition to a small wind-tunnel. This addition was for students testing airflow in a simple manner without the need for a technician present. Now we want you to pick up where they left off.

The exact mission is still undecided! But below is an image from the previous group’s report. There is a smoke module (not shown), an acoustic module (not shown), and a control panel (not shown). The design in the image allows these modules to be added to the wind-tunnel. The students can then manipulate flow, add sound-waves, and watch the changes in the smoke to see a visualisation of the air-flow.

Suggested further work, from the previous group:

«Areas for Future Development: Despite the project’s overall success, several areas present opportunities for expansion in future student groups. Although the acoustic module will be implemented, future work could focus on integrating more extensive acoustic functionality to in increase the amount and variety of experiments able to be performed with the facility. The velocity measurement module is another area for development. While not prioritised in this project, knowing the exact airspeed outputted by the facility is useful for calibrating sensors. Lastly a big area for improvement could be to create a standardised set-up for different sensors to be calibrated. With guides, mounting systems and easy installation procedures it would be made very easy to use the facility for that purpose.»

Skills wanted within the group: Mechanical and electronic knowledge. Some programming/ scripting knowledge. Knowledge about design will be useful.

Supervisor: Ramis Örlü, professor