About

This is Erica. She is a cyber rhino made as part of Marwell Zoo‘s GoRhinos campaign. This means she’s full of state-of-the-art technology from Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. This page tells you a bit more about what Erica can do and the technology that makes her so amazing! For a more detailed introduction, read Erica the Rhino Has Escaped the Wild and is here on the World Wide Web!

rhino-blueprint - labelled

Our GoRhino uses very small low power computers to control various parts like the ears or cameras in the eyes. It will respond to people being nearby, provide a WiFi network for people to interact with it with smartphones, Tweet and read tweets about it and make Rhino sounds. The various RPi computers will interact inside just like web servers in the Word Wide Web. The “brain” will respond to stimuli and change the “mood” of the rhino – which will affect its lights/sounds/movements.