Eden Lew

René is a 17-year old tabletop Japanese industrial robotic arm with the soul of a French circus performer. In its retirement, René seeks to live out its dream to run away and take over the circus. However, it quickly learns that its technical limitations will prevent it from ever performing as well as a human. Despite its challenges (and with an overwhelming amount of human assistance) René tries its best to perform its own interpretations of entertaining circus acts. In February 2020, René performed a 15-minute 1-robot show at the New York Hall of Science. As part of NYSCI’s Engineering Week, René was assisted by high school Explainers to perform 50 shows across the week to hundreds of visitors.