A long time ago (well, 30 years ago), in a Midwestern state far, far away (well, 3700 miles away), I was a young boy who dreamed of robots. While my sweet mother bought me an Intellivision (so much better than Atari. Loved that talking B-17 bomber game), what I really wanted was a robot. Not some silly wind up robot. No, a real one. Of course I knew that R2-D2′s level of intelligence was far off, but still, a robot would be cool. And you could get a robot. There was a fantastic Japanese company, Tomy, that made real robots, called OmniBots.

Alas, I never did get an Omnibot and still don’t have one, even though I now own around 200 robots (no really. 14 humanoids alone. Two life-sized R2-D2′s. Twelve omni-wheeled soccer bots. My wife must love me…). But a guy can reminisce. And what with the internets and databases and all, I can surf for all the robots that I missed out on as a kid:

Tomy Bots via [le Boing]

I promise you this is not another mere-smear BS YouTube embed just to say we’ve posted when we actually are only posting a BS Youtube embed.

Okay so maybe it could kind of lok that way but it’s cool because tis is abkut US! As in, it’s about RoboGames, the li’l shindig we throw in June or thereabouts in San Francisco.

Bill Sherman, robot builder extraordinaire, always sets up a nifty time lapse camera at RoboGames to capture the arena build and all sorts of other silliness. He has included footage he took of some of the art bot mezzanine as well. Tel him how neat he is and thank him for putting this up.

[BTW, hello to all those coming from Neatorama through the Rotor's last post, we weren't expecting guests to please forgive us if we're scrambling around to tidy things up.]

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,”

Company Denies its Robots Feed on the Dead

Ethics and politics and scary skynet inspired theories aside, it would be cool to have a fourth funeral option. “Say Bob, I don’t want to be buried or cremated, and screw biological sciences anyways. Feed me to the robots!”

[via Wired's Danger Room and Alexander Rose]

Do you wish to terrorize cities but don’t have a laboratory or handy secret lair in which to develop your giant robot prowess? Have you always wanted to frighten small children without too much effort? Are you scheduled for world domination next thursday but your mech in the shop for repairs?

Worry Not! Now there’s new Soundroid Rampage for your iPhone! Tear, rend, whirr and crush your enemies beneath your sound-enhanced feet*! Deploy genuine FRIKKIN’ LAAAZZZOORZZZZ with the touch of a fingertip!

$0.99 at the iTunes Store. Thanks to Wooji-Juice for looking out for our killer-robot soundtrack needs.

tip o’ the hubcap to Bruce Sterling

Mike White is a guy who does amazing things, even though he clearly spends waay too much time in a darkened room, twiddling knobs:

Iron Man Meets Gigantor from Mike White on Vimeo.

See more of his stuff here. Damn.

Oh yea.