Exhibit on Robots at Mayborn Museum Complex

In science fiction, robots look like R2D2. In stores, they look like vacuum cleaners and robotic pets.

A new traveling exhibit Robots + Us at the Mayborn Museum Complex will allow museum visitors to compare sci-fi fantasies of robots with today's technical realities and to explore why it's so hard to build human-like robots. The exhibit will be on display in the Thomas E. and Emilyne Weed Anding Traveling Exhibition Gallery, Jan. 26 through April 28. The museum is at 1300 S. University Parks Drive.

Visitors will direct light-sensitive robots through mazes that they create in the Robot Arena; experiment with walking machines in the Leg Lab to learn how simple changes in anatomy can affect how they walk and handle obstacles; interact with Lena, a computer-generated character who will "chat" about the exhibition; and learn to race and outwit the surprisingly "human" Robot Arm.

"Robots have fascinated us for decades and continue to be a hot topic today," said Ellie Caston, Ph.D., director of Baylor University's Mayborn Museum Complex.

Regular admission, which includes all access to the entire museum and the Robots + Us exhibit, is $10 for adults, $9 for senior citizens and $5 for children. The exhibition is free to all museum members and Baylor students. This courtesy is also extended to other college and university students with a valid ID.

The exhibit admission Saturday, Jan. 26, and Sunday, Jan. 27, will be a special price of $5 per person. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays; and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.