The excessively intelligent and infuriatingly productive Jeri Ellsworth goes over her new-to-her Heathkit Hero Jr., lovingly extracted from here in the depths of the Robunker (We have five more. Get ‘em while they’re cutely obsolete!).
Update: HOLY NUGGETS! WE DID IT! AND WITH FIVE DAYS TO GO!
You all win at cocktail robots, thanks a ton to our backers, each and every one!
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Lend us you ears! And your antennas! And your sonar sensors, and photovoltaics, and . . .whatever. So, we have thins fun and exciting event coming up, which is completely awesome any way you slice it, but even awesome if you are in the greater San Francisco bay Area and can actually go:
BARBOT 2011!
A lost weekend of cocktail robotics
April 1-2, 2011
9pm-2am
Parisoma Innovation Loft
169 11th Street, San Francisco
21+ with photo ID $10 advance / $15 at door
Buy Tickets here!
And that’s all neat and everything, but before we get there, we have to get the actual robots there and working! So, please have a gander at this here Kickstarter thingy we have set up to get the last little shreds of money to have the most amazing BarBot OMG EVAR:
GIVE US YOUR POCKET CHANGE HERE AND MAKE THE ROBOTS HAPPY
Kickstarter is the darndest thing, We have been up for a day and are over halfway to our goal of $743!
That’s right, we just need $292 dollars to be TOTALLY FREAKING FUNDED!
Nice people who send us a buck get heartfelt thanks and updates, people who get more get even *more* heartfelt thanks and updates, plus cool robot stickers, buttons and lots of other neat things that make *you* part of this project! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your cocktail robot loving dog! Help us get the word out, and you can say you knew us back when! Yay!
BarBot 2011 would also at this time like to thank Red Bull USA, who are being awesome and generously supporting Barbot 2011.
Are you an artist? Do you schlep and hurp and derp and sit at tables and sell things after working long lonely hours on your robot art?
Well then, we have something in which you might be interested.
Image courtesy 2011 Artist Table holder Josh Ellingson and our lovely sponsor Willow Garage
RoboGames for the very first time ever, in the tradition of APE, WonderCon and Comicon, is having an Artist’s section where makers of fine robot-themed art can peddle their wares in safety and comfort.
Interested? Oh yes you are. Contact Simone at RoboGames dot net for details and extremely reasonable pricing.
In these trying times, some thought must be given to the small respites afforded by life in the 21st century. With an eye to this, we here at The Robotics Society of America (a registered 501c3 educational nonprofit, whee) are holding the Third Annual BarBot, a celebration of cocktail robotics and culture:
Full details and advance tickets HERE!
Join us April 1-2, 2011 at Parisoma, 169 11th St (at Natoma) in San Francisco. Cocktails, robots, and swingin’ music. Who could ask for more?
Like its Austrian sister event RoboExotica, Barbot 2011 will address the bigger questions in relaxation technology: Can a true man-machine interface achieve true transparency? Will technology morph to keep pace with eventual ubiquitous computing expectations? Are the margaritas actually any good?
All these questions and more will be answered during the course of two nights with robot music, swingin’ robot atmosphere, groovy entities both organic and manufactured, and some hot, hot science.
What’s more, it will serve as a delightful benefit for that most worthy of causes, The Robotics Society of America (501c3, remember?), proceeds to go to putting on RoboGames, the world’s largest open robot competition, dedicated to learnin’ kids good about Science, Math, Engineering and Technology.
In order to have a truly superlative BarBot scene, however, we need to add to our already burgeoning field of robots YOUR WONDERFUL CREATIONS.
Do you have a cocktail bot lying around collecting dust? Do you have components kicking around just *begging* to be made into human-serving, pleasure-giving automata (or semi-automata, we’re not too picky. . .)? Do you have a robot already in progress that would benefit from a deadline? Have you always wanted to build a thing from scratch and just needed a purpose for it? Are you in the greater SF Bay Area?
Cash assistance available for the neediest an most interesting cases. This means YOU.
Contact sb at suicidebots dot com
(or fill out the contact form over yonder —–> (under Information Is Sexy))
and tell us tales of your creations! Be a part of cocktail robotics history!
This talk is as awesome as you might think it is. Cynthia is one of our heroines.
Hey all you Mechwarriors kung fu fighters and RoboOne aspirants, here’s a nice hack that will definitely make you the belle of the competition in April
Although if Taylor Veltrop, humanoid roboticist and Kinect hacker extraordinaire, shows up to RoboGames, you guys are going to have some scrambling to do:
The robot is based on the ever-popular KHR-1 humanoid platform, and tweaked with ROS and the electronics have been replaced with a RoBoard.
[PSSST- Register for RoboGames HERE!]
Going through my backlog, I find this adorable round-up on the Makezine blog of hard core robots that at bleepin’ scary to watch in action.
We love this sort of thing and eat it up just like the demo bot below rends concrete flesh from rebar bones:
That was just Number 6, see the rest over at Make:Blog
Thanks Heather Knight!
HOLY MOLY(bdenum), Robo Bat Friends! Let me tell you about this new iPhone iPad iPod app for $2.99 that-
And I quote:
“Description
No 1 Staff Favorite in Japan!
LOVEBOTS by KIT ROBOT has arrived! The NEW Digital Robot Assembly Kit and Robot Avatar Creator, SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES.
Placing creative power in your hands! Join the loveBot
Presented by Award Winning WhiteWall Studios.
Forget the Golden Plastic Age of model kits, limiting the range of parts to one model and WELCOME to the Golden Digital Age.
Now Introducing LOVEBOTS, where you can create over 1.3 MILLION combinations of Robots out of the box!”
Check out the gallery of ideas on boingboing as there are lots of delicious and eye popping pictures to ponder while you get your iTunes on speed dial.
I leave you now with one final quote:
“We are asking LoveBot fans to send us their creations, as we plan to release The Art of LoveBots app book. “
Because this whole robot thing seems to be “in” among the young kids these days, Makerbot Industries is announcing Botacon, a DIY robotic symposium taking place this coming weekend in NYC.
The speaker’s list if formidable, and includes RoboGames‘ own Academic Chair for 2011, Heather Knight.
Heather Knight – Robotic Touch: Capacitive Sensing to Understand Human Body Language
Rob Gilson – State of the Replicators
Chris Connors – MakerBot and emerging technologies in the classroom
Dustyn Roberts – 3D without the Glasses: Making Assemblies of Parts
Laura Greig – Helping Paintbots Become More Than Printers
Kio Stark – 9 Ways to Make Your Robot Come to Life
Ben Combee – Put a Web Server on Your Bot
Erik de Bruijn – Open source innovation: On empowerment, architecture and ecosystems
Mr.Kim and John Sarik – Makerbot Printable Transistors and OLEDs
George Hart – Cool Geometric Forms
Zach Smith – Compilers of Industrial Revolution 2
Ilan Moyer – Gestural Design: Product Design in an Age of Personal Fabrication
Iem and Andy Heng and Zhang – Autonomous and Non-Autonomous Flexible Robot
Amy Hurst – Nickel for Scale – automatically customizing 3D objects to fit YOU!
Adam Mayer – Tiny Robots Everywhere
MakerBlock – How to be a robot dad
Raphael Abrams – The Nine Step Program to Make a Robot Puppet that Will Haunt Your DreamsThis is shaping up to be THE conference about DIY robotics and the bright future for automated everything. Be there!
So get your tickets, slot in your extra RAM and get yourself to NYC ASAP for robot DIY, PDQ.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the HAMDAS-R:
So the other day, I got myself a Skype account and hunkered down in the living bunker of Uncanny Valley Estates (where we live and work and poke the robots with sticks) and spent an hour shooting the shit with a few interesting and intelligent people about The Future for the TWiT Fourcast podcast. It was fun.
This video is the result:
We’re waking up with Electric Six a lot around our house these days. Here’s a totally non-gratuitous Robot Themed Song by those crazy awesome dance masters. Grids, romance, loose wires, gazing and blank stares, man railing against faulty technology.
Just in time to rock the weekend!
On this fine US Thanksgiving Day, as you reflect on the bounty that surrounds you (or on the turkey pot pie you just pulled from the microwave, whatever) remember that robots are not necessarily always the cold-hearted world-destroying automatons that we might presume them to be.
Apropos of this here is an absolutely cutie-patootie 80s-tastic irony-anerable music video by Dan Mangan and friends.
Robots By Dan Mangan
Roooobooots Neeed Looove Toooo. . . .
[A thousand times thank you for sending this our way, Heather Knight!]
The Vth Annual Combots Cup is upon us!
The Combots Cup: like the Stanley Cup, except MORE METAL.
Combots Cup V
Saturday, Oct 23rd 2:00pm – 7:00pm
Sunday, October 24th, 2:00pm – 7:00pm
at San Mateo County Event Center, San Mateo, California
GETCHER TICKETS HERE!
SEE heavyweight fighting robot behemoths like Last Rites and Sewer Snake wipe the walls with each other inside our custom built bulletproof arena!
THRILL to all the good parts of a NASCAR crash without all that pesky danger to human life! All the excitement of monster trucks, but up close and extremely personal!
FLAME THROWERS! SPINNING BLADES OF DOOM! HYPER-PSI STEEL FLIPPERS OF NASTINESS!
Also, a fine example of the benefits of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education and continued learning through the power of the nascent DIY and home-based Maker movement.
MEET the builders, learn the stats, get robot schwag and say you were there! Fun for the whole family if your family likes TOTAL ROBOT DESTRUCTION!
GET YOUR TICKETS TO COMBOTS CUP V get a nice juicy discount when you purchase in advance on the web!
STAY to the bitter end and find out who wins part of the $3500 prize purse – and who goes home in a bucket!
Grab your beer and popcorn, grease up your sprockets, and for cripe’s sake don’t tell the kids it’s educational COMBOTS CUP V – YOUR FUTURE ROBOT OVERLORDS WILL SEE YOU THERE.
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