From the buried annals of the turbulent backwaters of tech gadgetry, we bring you:

Johnny 5 In Legos:

Seriously. There is moistness going on here at the mention of his Lego differential. And the moving laser. and the line follower. And the raising and lowering torso. Um.

OH MY GOD THIS HAS A LANGUAGE MODULE DOWNLOADS!! AND VIDEOS!!

Hey, who knew there was a Lego Mindstorms Webring? Check it out folks!

If any Lego people pay us a visit here at SB, why not come show your stuff off at RoboGames?

Amazing model thought up and done by Daniele Benedettelli.

Excavated from Zedomax

Ally Sheedy fixation by Mr. Robotics.

So we’re sure you’re wondering to yourself “Self? I have a hankering to enter *something* into that RoboGames thingydoo, but I Just. Don’t Know. What!”

Say you want a nice simple humanoid in which to compete in Kung Fu or the Agility or all those other exciting humanoid competitions.

You poke around for a bit and discover the ugly truth about building one from scratch:

“Oh Noo! Humanoids, they are so very complex!
They are hard to build and break if you look at them funny! I do not own a mill nor do I have a big giant brain with which I may re-invent the Humanoid Wheel! Whatever shall I do?”

Well, fear no more Faithful Reader. We have an outlet for all your robot-building needs. Trossen Robotics has just consented to partner with us for RoboGames 2007!

We love Trossen for their huge assortment of robots, kits and everything else, plus they have a spiffy blog from which we steal from which we gain inspiration!

There’s a kit here for every taste, from the hyperreal anime cosplay goodness of the Manoi series, to Robonova and everything above, below, betwixt and between. We all know you’ve secretly been wanting an AT-ST for your very own, now you can have one all for a reasonable price and a few hours dealing with tiny, tiny screws.

Trossen is going to have all kinds of good schwag at Robogames, like sticker and fliers, along with some really spiffy deals for RoboGames attendees!

Make sure you stick the stickers somewhere really inappropriate, like your mom, or the girl’s bathroom at the Uptown, because nothing says Awesome like random robot schwag in unexpected places.

Thank you for providing us with this opportunity, Trossen Robotics, We thank you.

This physics-based simulation of stumbling sumo blockheads takes less than 100k of code. Plus it’s hilarious. 1337 ind33d.

No we don’t mean Henry Rollins. We mean the bug spray, ‘Cause this is the biggest freakin’ spider EVAR.

Say Hi to the MondoSpider. Eek.

Yeah yeah, we weren’t afraid of it either, till we saw it walk. Trust me, that limbic hindbrain kicks in when you see this thing move:

These guys got funding from Burning Man to build and run this thing out on the Playa. Perhaps it might make a visit to RoboGames? Hmm. . .

Excellent interesting event At the Alameda County Computer Reseource Center! (ACCRC)

From Le Boing:

ReMake: Bay Area electronics recycling event starts tomorrow!
This weekend, MAKE: and the Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) in Berkeley, California are holding a 24 hour event for makers to build stuff from the tons of fantastic gear collected by the electronics recycler. BYOT! (Bring your own tools!) Here are the details:

ACCRC in Berkeley, CA and Make have been collecting household electronics–including old projects, failed inventions, half finished prototypes. All of these items will be diverted to ReMake, a 24-hour event beginning at noon on Saturday, April 28.

Come find parts for your new projects and work with others to create something new from salvaged electronics. ACCRC will provide internet, sleeping quarters, food, and plenty of toys to aid makers to encourage us to recycle and ReMake. Bring your tools and anything else needed to create. You can also bring anything you ReMake to the upcoming Maker Faire, May 19-20 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, where we will showcase how a little innovation can make the old, new again.

Where: Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC), 1501 East Shore Highway, Berkeley, CA 94710

When: Noon, April 28, 2007 – Noon, April 29, 2007

Head over there early to look for your robot parts, because friends, there’s still time to RESGISTER for The Combots Cup!

$10,000 (yes, that’s $10,000 Smackers!) disbursed to the lucky first, second and third place winners!

Combots Cup and RoboGames are going to be occupying the entire Fiesta Hall at Maker Faire this May 19-20th at the San Mateo Fairgrounds.

Pop by and say hi, and enter what you built into RoboGames!

It’s lo-res and does not have much explanation, but yum:

Video From Autonomous Mobile Robots

From some lovely students who seem to be affiliated with The CarNAYgie Mellon Robotics Institute, and L’Ecole Polytechnique Federal De Lausanne.

What’s the one utterly pointless yet oddly compelling personal mode of transportation that everyone gigles at but secretly lusts after?

No, not the Segway.

It’s the Personal Hovercraft!

Not that the personal hovercraft is in any way dumb, it’s mostly the staid-looking guys in tweeds that really increase the dumb quotient.

As a contrast, here is a hovercraft that is most definitely not dumb, in fact, it is decidedly lethal.

Mark Pauline’s Hovercraft for SRL is roughly ten feet long, eight feet wide, and propelled by some white-hot, pain-loud pulse jet engines. Not good for riding. Good for scaring the crap out of unsuspecting hipsters standing next to the barriers at an SRL show, however.

[Thanks Random Good Stuff!]

It’s the usual story. . .robot has job, robot is chased by giant mechanoid terror, robot escapes with the help of a plucky helicopter-rotor wearing friend, robot continues to do job, all done in a lovely neomodernist Flash animation.

It’s Walk Smash Walk



[For the art and the idea, we thank you, Techyum!]

Suicidebots has signed up for the Science Scouts, because when you can make a margarita maker out of a nearly-dead fighting robot and then light the grill with liquid oxygen, one kind of has to.

(Image courtesy the Science Scouts badge library. The significance of this badge is I Build Robots Level IV, “In which, technically technically, the recipient is not in the business of world domination (as dictated by membership rules), but has built a robot that is.”)

[via Le Boing]

Yes indeedy, it’s Comix Cthursday here at SB, and in this week’s installment we bring you some Questionable Content.

As we mentioned a few posts back, the Rotor is spinning away on the SWARM project, a fleet of autonomous spherical robots. Keep track of what they’re up to on the SWARM blog — they are starting to roll!

Here’s what the spherical shell looks like. Nice, huh? Don’t miss the videos on the blog.

Fearsome predator or cute widdle birdie bot? Guess it depends if you’re a pigeon or not. It’s Robop, the bird-control robot.

Perhaps worth a try, but the Rotor suspects the gangsta pigeons in his urban ‘hood would be disrespecting that sucka pretty quick.

Apparently the builder has a promotional deal with Miller, which explains the unfortunate choice of projectiles. (Yah, the Rotor is a beer snob. How did you guess?)

Mmm. Beer. Robots. Beer flashbacks elsewhere on SB:
Japanese Beer Robots, more JBR, Beer Fetchin’ Robot.

Some of the SB crew went to the Alternative Press Expo and feasted on the delightful sensory overload that is a giant wealth of alternative comics.

We ran into the robocentric and all-around nice guy, Joe Alterio, author of the sublime Basic Virus web comic. not that we support the coming robot revolution, oh no not us.

Joe was sharing table space with Kaiju Big Battel, who are some of the giant Japanese monster-wrestling people we wish to be when we grow up.

Joe has a thing for robots, (not that that’s a problem, and we can all quit ANY TIME WE WANT, thanks) and is also responsible for the propaganda thoughtful educational material distributed by the Robo-Equality Party.

Mr. Robotics also plied SB with nifty robot toys expanded our research collection by purchasing some select pieces of contemporary robot art.

We now have a shiny delicious new Skull Bunny, one-of-a-kind by Ben Seto of Black Sheep Comics!

Here are a few pictures, taken by the Offical SuicideBots Digital Camera, Sponsored by Laughing Squid! Laughing Squid, consummate supporter of underground arts and culture tossed us this Panasonic Lumix one day and said “Try it out!”. We’re liking it so far though our technique leaves a lot to be desired.

We sought out Attaboy, who is to be congratulated on the debut of his nifty new short animation, Too Many Robots! The short debuted on the Disney Channel last Friday, and will be downloadable from iTunes soon, if it’s not already.

Finally, here is a MechaKitty we saw on a on a table of Wee Beasties.

The comics schwag was plentiful, and leapt up to plant itself inside our carrier bag, and now the SB Laptop is festooned with stickers large, small and nonsenical. Robots were everywhere in many different combinations, and squids were not far behind, supplanting pirates and clowns as the evil icon du jour.

[Thanks to Joe for letting us take his picture. Support the Revolution! Buy Robo-Equality shirts, Comrades!]

Because there are not enough interesting robot blogs in the world, we humbly present to you the newest addition to our robo-family. Yes, it’s a Bouncing Baby Robogames Blog!

This blog concerns itself with contestants building robots of various sorts in preparation for RoboGames, June 15th-17 in San Francisco.

From Mr. Robotics:

Well, this is the blog for RoboGames contestants.

Some will be sumo, some will be android, some will be soccer, and a lot will be combat.

We, the organizers, will probably blog now and again, but I suspect that reading about how a potential sponsor told us “no” isn’t as interesting as how a robot self destructed and they have to rebuild it.

If you are a contestant, and are just bursting at the seams to extoll the virtues of your machine, let us know!