Public Engagement with Research (PER)

This year’s Public Engagement with Research (PER) training, delivered jointly with the Statistics for Machine Learning CDT, equipped students with the skills and confidence to communicate their research to public audiences, focusing on interactive, hands-on activities. Following a workshop covering the fundamentals of PER, students worked in teams with mentor support, to design and deliver interactive demonstrations inspired by research at established engagement events. Team Evo-Racer created Evolving Cars, a crowd-driven racing game that visualised how genetic algorithms optimise performance through selection and iteration, engaging around 160 visitors at the Oxford Mathematics Festival. Team Aim4Change developed Cornhole Rewards for Climate Action, a reinforcement-learning-inspired game where players inferred the “reward” values of different climate solutions through play, sparking conversations about energy technologies and sustainability with more than 300 students and teachers at the Oxplore Festival. Both projects exemplified how play and competition can make complex AI concepts tangible and meaningful, earning recognition at the joint AIMS–StatML showcase, where Evo-Racer won the People’s Choice Award and Aim4Change received the Director’s Choice Award.