Meet the Wijkbot!

Welcome! Whether you've encountered the Wijkbot in person or heard about it, read on for an introduction to how the Wijkbot came about and its journey so far.

On this website you'll find many examples of neighborhood robots built in workshops, in the Cities of Things LAB010 living lab, in student projects, and at festivals. Contact Iskander if you'd like to know more or would like us to organise a workshop.

The Wijkbot began as an accessible way for anyone to quickly prototype city robots. In the Cities of Things LAB010 project (2022–2024), we collaborated with the Afrikaander Cooperative and spent a year working with a residents' think tank to explore what city robots could mean for the Afrikaanderwijk. The result was the Inzamelbot — a collection robot.

The Inzamelbot's appearance was inspired by the newly opened Grondstoffenstation of the Cooperative. The Wijkbot platform today combines a second-hand hoverboard as a base with a standard open-source controller, and a body built from leftover packaging materials from the nearby market.

We've discovered that the Wijkbot platform is an excellent way to start conversations, generate knowledge, and make tangible what would otherwise remain abstract. We've experienced this in workshops at PublicSpaces (Amsterdam), the Society 5.0 Festival, Smart & Social Fest (Rotterdam), Climate Meets Creative Coding (Hamburg), Dutch Design Week, and many others.

Over the past years, many student projects have been carried out using the Wijkbot platform as a foundation or tool — conceptually, design-focused, and technically.

The Wijkbot is an initiative of Cities of Things and Creating010. Cities of Things is a knowledge platform and research programme that originated at TU Delft, focused on the design of intelligent things and their role in cities and society.