Overview

Myself and my colleague from Euan's Guide attended the Blackwood Design Awards and had a Euan's Guide stall.

Transport & Parking

I drove my car to The National Robotarium so I cannot comment on the public transport however, my colleague took a bus which was only around a 10-minute walk away from the venue. As I drove through the university campus The Robotarium was very well signposted and so was the car park. There were three disabled parking spaces in the car park and five electric car charging points. The ground of the car park was smooth to drive on in a wheelchair and the spacious pathway leading up to the venue was right beside the car park, so it was easy to get to.

Access

It is automatic wide doors to enter The National Robotarium and the entrance area is very spacious. Due to attending The Robotarium for an event, I didn’t visit the whole venue but the areas I did visit were very nice and modern. The main area where we sat to watch the presentations for the awards had rows of benches at the back where people could sit but there were stairs to get up to them however, there were seats in front of this area where wheelchair users could sit at the side of. With attending an event all the doors were open to get from the presentation area to the stall areas so there were no problems getting around, but I can imagine that it would be a little more difficult to get around if the doors were closed. We got shown around a lab area of The Robotarium and even though it was a little tight to get around, it was manageable.

Toilets

I only saw the ground floor disabled toilet in The National Robotarium so I cannot comment on all of them however, the disabled toilet that I did see was spacious but there wasn’t much space beside the toilet area. As you can see from the image below the left-hand side of the toilet is quite close to the wall and the sink, and there are a lot of bins on the right-hand side of the toilet. Although there is lots of room near the door area of the disabled toilet so you could move the bins up a little towards the door so that it is easier to transfer to the toilet.

Staff

Due to being here for an event, I didn’t really speak to the staff at The National Robotarium as I spoke to the Blackwood staff more however, I did speak to their CEO as he was very interested in improving the accessibility of the building.

Photos