Next fall, prospective and existing UConn students will be able to declare majors in robotics engineering and UConn will become only the second research-intensive university in the U.S. to offer the specific major. Students will design, build, and operate robots — defined as not just the walking, talking trons of popular fiction and film, but as any machine capable of autonomously carrying out complex actions.

Yes, the TikTok possibilities are endless. So are the applications in many commercial areas, such as health care, logistics, manufacturing, maintenance, and surveillance. UConn Engineering has been a leader in the field, with research in autonomous drones, path planning, human-robot collaboration, cyborg insects, and more.