Inside Chironix — Perth’s ‘Willy Wonka factory’ for robots

Collingwood Street in Osborne Park is a pretty standard looking road in a pretty standard looking industrial area.

It boasts the usual mix of panelbeaters, wardrobe manufacturers, mechanics, gym equipment sellers, tile shops, furniture retailers and lunch bars selling chicken and cheese toasties.

In one of the many nondescript warehouses that litter Collingwood Street, workers at a company called Chironix spend their days making robots. Their headquarters is a mix of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and Terminator 2.

I was at Chironix (it draws its name after the centaur Chiron, who is famous in Greek mythology for his medicinal skills) last week with Federal Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price.

She was there to announce that the Federal Government was becoming a principal partner of the Resources Technology Showcase 2021 — an event that is hosted by Seven West Media (which publishes this newspaper).

The inaugural Resources Technology Showcase was held in 2019. It was designed to get West Australians to “reimagine resources” by highlighting the extraordinary technology that underpins the mining and energy sectors.

Over two days in November the biggest resources companies in the world turned the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre into a wonderland of augmented reality, drones, remote operations centres and robotics.

It was completely free to attend and thousands of people got a firsthand look at some quite amazing technology.

The 2021 event is coming back to the PCEC on June 21 and June 22.

Once again it will be completely free and once again the exhibition halls will be filled with cool robots.

Which brings us back to Chironix.

RTS 2021 will profile how the skills needed in the resources industry are in hot demand — and transferable to other sectors, such as defence.

Chironix is in the sweet spot of this intersection. Its robots scan and map facilities, detect objects and make autonomous decisions in dangerous, dull or dirty environments that people should avoid if they can.

Woodside is using them to conduct inspections of unmanned offshore platforms. Defence departments are looking to use Chironix robots as “autonomous battlefield ambulances”.

Ms Price wants every school kid who comes to RTS to walk out understanding that studying STEM can lead to an amazing career building robots like Spot — the yellow machine pictured above that looks a bit like a cat (it also moves like a cat and has a better range of knee motion than me).

“We have chosen to be a part of RTS because we want to educate students and their teachers here in WA about the incredible career opportunities in Australia’s defence industry,” she said.

“It’s a massive showcase for the fantastic opportunities for our young Australians. There is a generation of skilled, well-paying jobs in defence industry that is awaiting our kids.

“I cannot understate just how important it is for our young people to witness the opportunities that will be on show at this great event.

“We know innovative technologies are critical to the mining and resources sector but they are absolutely critical to the defence and space industries too.

“As a Government we want to inspire interest in science and technology at school to ensure that it is young Australians who reap the benefits of our investments.”

For more information about what’s happening in June, and to register your school under the official excursion program, visit rtsperth.com.au