Robo Expo @ Chabot
$24 Adults, $19 Kids, FREE for Members
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Martian rovers. Driverless cars. Huggable food delivery bots. Whether assisting in data collection on faraway planets, zooming through city streets, or vacuuming kitchen floors, autonomous robotics have become a regular part of life here in our part of the galaxy.
Join Chabot Saturday, March 28th, for a fun, hands-on exploration of robotics, featuring OUSD’s annual Robotics Club Competition and opportunities to build your own functional bots with wires, circuits and Legos! Discover how rovers & robots help humans make scientific discoveries out in space, tinker with tech, and get up close & personal with real aerospace robots on display in our NASA Ames Visitor Center. You may even see some familiar androids roaming the exhibits!
Time Activities
10:00am – 12:00pm | First Floor
Roaming Robots: Fritz
Chabot’s good friend Fritz the Robot will be roaming the First Floor of the Center this morning. If you see him, come say hello!
10:00am-4:00pm | Lab 1
Stand Up for Science! Banner-Making Lab
Join us in Lab 1 to make your own pins and banners in defense of science!
Display your posters at 11:00am and or 4:00pm in the Stand Up for Science march. Meet back at Lab 1 for a demonstration across the Center!
10:00am – 12:30pm & 1:30pm – 4:30pm | Lab X
Galaxy Explorer Engineering Team
Come watch our galaxy explorers prototype rover wheels! Our students will be using CAD and 3d printing to test out and make wheel prototypes for their rovers.
11:00am – Sell out | Courtyard
Food Pop-Up: SMAX
Grab a bite of something tasty with SMAX, an Oakland-based Asian-American fusion pop-up lovingly run by friends Joog and Paris.
11:30am – 12:05pm | Theater
Powering the Operating System of the Physical World
Meet the robot family! From campus snacks to warehouse stacks, we’re deploying Level 4 autonomy to revolutionize delivery. Discover how our Al-driven fleet conquers the real world—even in the snow!
David Rodriguez is the co-founder of Robot.com, a Colombian-founded pioneer in robotics. He leads a global team building the future of autonomous systems and manufacturing innovation.
1:00pm – 2:00pm | Studio 2
Gallery Concert with Pale Blü Dot
Merging art and science, Pale Blü Dot shares her love of astronomy through experimental music. Join her to explore the mysteries of the universe through this electronic performance.
Based in San Francisco, Pale Blü Dot brings the stars to the city through art and education while advocating for dark sky access and raising awareness about light pollution.
1:30pm & 3:30pm | Theater
Live Science: Back to the Moon
Join Chabot educators on a trip to the Moon! In this immersive Live Science show, kids of all ages explore the physical features of the moon & the challenges astronauts face on its rocky surface through exciting visuals and hands-on experiments.
1:30pm – 4:30pm | First Floor
Roaming Robots: Curiosity Jr.
Local builder, Laura McKeegan, will be on the first floor of the Center with her remote-controlled Mars Rover replica, called “Curiosity Junior,” she built from 3D printed parts. Stop by to see it in action and to ask the builder about creating the rover!
2:30pm | NASA Ames Visitor Center
No Kings but Drag Kings! Story Hour
Join us in the NASA Ames Visitor Center for Drag Story Hour, featuring VERA!
VERA! is an Armenian-American nonbinary drag king. They are the co-host of the Rebel Kings of Oakland, oldest drag king troupe on the West Coast; co-host of Save Her! environmental drag show with Pattie Gonia; Creative Director of Drag Story Hour Bay Area; and board member of Oaklash Bay Area Drag Festival. VERA! is Mx. Starsearch, Saint Rebellious sainted by Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and proud drag father of the House of Pack with 43 children and a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren. They love to read stories and dance around with kiddos all across the Bay Area!
Ongoing Experiences
All Day | Rotunda
Hands-On Robotics with PlayWell TEKnologies!
Explore robotics and engineering through hands-on LEGO builds with Play-Well TEKnologies! Design and compete in customizable battletrack battles with fellow participants or try out and learn about creating walking robots.
All Day | Cafe
Robotics Isn’t Just Coding — It’s Design Thinking, Prototyping, and 3D Making (Presented by 3DMAKERCAMP)
Learn how tools like 3D printers, laser cutters, and LEGO help turn creative ideas into real robots and future engineering careers.
All Day | Courtyard
Build-Your-Own Rover
Rovers are car-like spacecraft that NASA uses to explore the surfaces of other worlds, such as the Moon and Mars. In this workshop, participants will engage their creativity to engineer and design a model rover. They will then test their vehicle on a simulated lunar surface, and iterate on their design to gain traction on another world.
All Day | 2nd Floor
Roaming Robots: Robot.com
Catch me if you can! Kiwibot will be zooming around the 2nd floor of the Center all day. If you say hello, be sure to look closely – it might have some surprises in store for you!
All Day | Lab 2
Bay Area Amateur Droid Builders
Swing by Lab 2 to get up close & personal with some friendly robots and chat with the crafty engineers who built them!
All Day | Mezzanine
NASA Construction Robots: Building the Future of Space
NASA studies how teams of robots can work together like a construction crew in space, building giant space stations, telescopes, and habitats that are too big to launch from Earth.
All day | Mezzanine
Build It. Code It. Watch It GO!
Build your own bots using VEX IQ and LEGO SPIKE kits, race super cars, spin a Ferris wheel, and learn to code with Synapse Robotics!
All Day | Classroom 1
Build-A-Bot with The Cheesy Chips
Join The Cheesy Chips – a high school FIRST Robotics Team – for an interactive demo in Classroom 1! Get a chance to drive bots created by the team and build your own.
All Day| Studio 3
4th Annual Oakland Robotics Invitational
The Oakland Unified School District and MSET 6165 Cuttlefish present the 4th Annual Oakland Robotics Competition. Elementary, middle, and high school robotics teams from across Oakland–and beyond– have gathered for a full-day celebration of robotics, including competitions of the FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST LEGO League.
All Day | Classroom 3-4
The Pits: Behind-The-Scenes with OUSD Robotics
This is the home base for each high school robotics team competing in the FIRST Tech Challenge at the Oakland Robotics Invitational @ Robo Expo. Stop by to get a behind-the-scenes look at high school robotics teams in action as they strategize, tinker, and improve robots.
All Day | Rachel (Telescope)
Jibo the Robot
Stop by the Telescope Complex on the Observation Deck to find Jibo, a social robot designed by MIT professor Cynthia Breazeal in 2014.
