Here’s yet another video of RoboGames 2008, courtesy our pals at Trossen Robotics and featuring the tiniest Johnny 5 that ever was at this particular booth between June 15th-18th of 2008:

You can build cool things like this by buying cool kits from Trossen.

Remember, every time you buy cool things from Trossen, a starving baby robot gets new batteries. Buy things from Trossen like all the cool kids do, and you too will someday be last against the wall when the revolution comes.

[Hey Trossen guys, is that good? Can you call off the rovers now?]

Artifical Intelligence and Robotics alerts us to this nifty little contest that the fun-lovin’ folks over at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2008) thought up and did.

The winner has been announced, but we hope they will do it again next year!

Okay we’re catching up here after the onslaught, and in an attempt to regain some semblance of relevance, we bring you a DaVinci surgical robot folding a tiny, tiny, tiny paper crane.

DaVinci surgical robots are amazing precisely because nobody who uses them (surgeons, other people with really huge brains) thinks twice about their use in the operating theater. Teleoperated surgical robots have been around for a while, but this one is the absolute latest and demos really nicely.
Keep in mind the pincer tips on the robot, the ones folding the crane, are about half and inch long or so.

[Thanks Pink Tentacle!]

Self playing robot band! A great way to post without actually posting anything!

They even have a MySpace just like a pink, squishy, organic band.

We’re still recovering from Post-Robogames burnout, and prepping for more events coming up soon. You’d think we woulda learned our lesson, but no. Actual commentary and posts will continue tomorrow, I promise.

So, for all of you playing along at home, you know that long, long ago, in a living room far, far away we had these nifty little sticker numbers for sale on this very website:

They were extremely popular (by “extremely” I of course mean at least three people, including my mother, got one and now wear them proudly on whatever they stuck them to).

Then came the dark times, the times before the empire when we forgot where we put them or we were too drunk to remember where we put them, or couldn’t find them because the moody lighting in the Fortress of Solitude kept distracting us, something. We didn’t have any, in any case.

Mister Robotics, however, in a bid to continue procrastinating on things that actually need to be done, re-did the design and ordered a whole passel more.

The upshot, my dear readers, is that we have ‘em in stock again. You may think ThinkGeek might have cornered the market on these, but you can only get ‘em here, from the design that we rightfully stole (Thanks Toast!) a measly $3.00 each (cheap!).

Click on the image above or get ‘em from the image in the sidebar over yonder.

Stick these things to other things and make your inanimate objects happy.

With this appallingly awesome T-shirt from wearscience.

More scientific! awesomeness here.

The rotor realizes he has erroneously been spelling “science!” without the exclamation mark for like years now.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about that.

*My* hexapod merely mopes under the table and frightens small children.

This darling little thing was made by Matt Denton, follow his other projects on Hexapodrobot.com

Please to meeting delightful friend Pekoppa plant!

“Heal yourself with this plant, which is a good listener!”

Two way interaction most desirable for small plant friend! Say to the plant the loudness! Plant is scary of you and loving sweet word! Pekoppa made with tiny technology for the fun making and happy refreshment!

Hooray Sega!

Now that RoboGames has come and gone, here are a few choice tidbits for you to remember it by (we will be over here being reminded of the event by the nervous tics, the calls from all the rental companies, and all the unexplained bruising).

Pictures from Mici Monster, our crack Door Moppet:

Evan over at BotJunkie got his fix as well, there’s some really nice footage of hockey and RoboOne in his RoboGames Roundup. There are dancing robots! And robot Hockey! Who knew? I sure didn’t, I was behind the combat arena maintaining schedules and giving line info to BunnyBot, of Team Dust Bunny, our amazing, amazing pit runner. She kept the lines going and the fuss to a minimum, and she did it all wearing a smile and her trusty bunny ears.

The illustrious and charmingly supportive Bill Sherman send us this little time lapse ditty he did of the combat pit and arena during the event. A thing to note about this particular snippet of video is the giant FLAMING BALL OF DEATH that was the lightweight contender Relic catching fire in the pit and being extinguished and dragged out on the pier apron in mere seconds. Whoo smoke! Yay insurance! Gnarly LiPoly battery vapors!

Our darling Lem down at Robots-Dreams has a good juicy gaggle of photos and info from the event as well, the humanoid stuff was completely awesome this year.

Again, big, huge, massive props to everybody who had anything to do with us: Mutt Posey and his crew: Stephen Felk, Mike and Amy Thombs, Ross, Bob the Stagehand, Rob Schmidt, John Law, and assorted other folks who came to help out whose names I never got or have misplaced, they were a well-oiled machine that kept the build and teardown from sucking as much as it might have.

Thanks to Kim The Rabid Wench who handled our volunteers and staffing, Shirley Davalos who helped with our sponsor party and other odds and ends, Scott “The Voice” Robinson and The Head Rotor for announcing duties, Arianna Davalos who build those gorgeous robots that flanked the entryway, Sam Coniglio for photography and our great group shot, and each and every competitor who showed up to play with us.

You are all awe-inspiring and we literally would have nothing to do if you didn’t give us a show to put on. See you next year!

A giant thank you to all our staff volunteers competitors and everybody else who made this all happen!

The results for this year’s RoboGames are up at The Official RoboGames Website, thanks for playing, we’ll see you next year!

This happened at RoboGames, you shoulda been there.

Scott Beale of Laughingsquid has posted some awesome photos and video from RoboGames 2008 this weekend! If you are in SF, stop by on Sunday!

Just a taste of what might be in store at Robogames. Although most matches are slightly more even.

Posting is gong to be even lighter than usual this week, as we are counting down to RoboGames show week next week!

If you just can’t come to San Francisco next weekend for our little shindig, you can play along at home by following RoboGames on Twitter!

This year features awesomeness galore, including Servo Magazine The Orb Swarm, Make: Magazine, robots from all over the world including Japan, Korea, Singapore, Canada, Iran, Austria, and the UK; Flash-O-Matic and the 240cc V-8 Blender, a shiny new arena with extra sexy ceiling trusses, and it all takes place NEXT WEEK June 13-15th on the water down at beautiful Fort Mason Center.

Friday is Student Groups Get In Free Day! Make reservations for your school group by contacting Simone at Combots Dot Net! One free chaperon for every ten kids under 18.

We’d like to thank our groovy major sponsors, including Laughing Squid Servo, Make, Lagunitas Brewing Company, and Hi-Tec.

See you at the games!