Catch firefighting and boxing robots in action at Science Centre’s robotics festival in April

SINGAPORE – Robots fighting fires, assisting seniors in walking, and even sparring with one another – these are some of the sights that will greet visitors to the Science Centre Singapore’s first robotics and artificial intelligence festival this April.

RoboFest 2026: Meet Tomorrow, Today is a four-day festival that will run from April 9 to 12 with interactive experiences and live demonstrations across four zones.

The first zone, dubbed The Playground, will feature live demonstrations including a robot boxing showdown and a robot dog firefighting challenge, as well as a comedy performance entitled My Colleague Is A Robot Dog.

“Visitors will also get a chance to build robots, engage in AI prompt-crafting through a multi-player game and determine if an image or video is real or AI-generated,” the Science Centre said in a release.

The second zone, Robotics In Real Life, features a curated gallery of applied robotics and AI, centred on real-world problem-solving.

The National University of Singapore will showcase seven projects. These include a palm-sized robot which replicates the elegant swimming motions of an octopus, to demonstrate advanced soft robotics technology where machines are made of flexible materials that allow them to mimic biological movements.

Other NUS projects include an assistive robot with a flexible robotic arm that can support seniors with walking and fall prevention, as well as a household robot assistant that people can instruct to perform tasks such as throwing away rubbish.

Projects by the Singapore University of Technology and Design include Dragonfly, an autonomous robot that can attract and trap mosquitoes, while local firm Stellaris Robotics’ projects include UBtech Alpha Mini Wukong, a portable intelligent humanoid companion robot, and Yanshee, an open-source humanoid robot for AI education.

The third zone, Learning Hub, will feature guided hands-on robotics and AI programming for schools and the public, as well as talks and workshops by industry experts.

It also offers a first look at the Lego Education Computer Science and AI Kit in Singapore.

Visitors can also interact with Ameca, an advanced humanoid robot, as well as explore drone coding and balancing robot motion and control systems.

The fourth zone, the RoboCup Arena, will host the 18th edition of robotics competition RoboCup Singapore, whose highlight is a football competition between robots, which will run over two days, beginning April 11.

The best teams will represent Singapore at RoboCup Asia-Pacific 2026 and the RoboCup World Championship 2026.

“Robots will keep improving but what matters is how we respond,” said Ms Tham Mun See, chief executive of the Science Centre Board.

“RoboFest is thus designed to help Singaporeans understand what technology can do today, understand the current limits, and where human judgment, empathy, creativity and responsibility matter most,” she added.

The Science Centre will collaborate with schools and other organisations to further develop robotics-based progressive learning programmes and AI-enhanced learning experiences, as part of a broader focus on these technologies in education.

The new festival comes as Singapore is increasingly adopting robotics and AI in various fields.

In February, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced in his Budget speech that he would chair a new National AI Council driving the Republic’s AI agenda, and outlined programmes aimed at encouraging more companies to adopt AI transformation.

RoboFest is supported by the Ministry of Education and public agencies including the Government Technology Agency of Singapore and AI Singapore, together with institutes of higher learning such as NUS and Nanyang Polytechnic.

Other partners supporting learning and engagement include Google Cloud and Google for Education; Duck Learning, a partner of Lego Education; and applied robotics collaborators including Weston Robot, Stellaris Robotics and Stick ’Em.