And the gorgeous and loverly prep for Roboexotica charges on, with organizers running back and forth in a flurry, wire everywhere, and many, many, many MANY spent cans of fine Austrian beer.

Here’s a picture of Mr. Robotics weeping softly and twitching, as he finishes Chapek in the home stretch before the show.

In the background you can see the legendary RoboMoji, constant attendee at RoboExotica and maker of the most carefully crafted mojitos made by a machine in Vienna in this room during these dates. Notice Chapek looming malignantly in the background. There is also a very interesting head-mounted device which mysteriously appears without any apparent creator.
Investigative reporting to follow.

This one pretty much speaks for itself.

Roboexotica has been getting spiffy mention in a few places.

Myself, Mr. Robotics and The Head Rotor convened at the Robunker last night to faff around in preparation for Roboexotica in Vienna this year.

El Espanol Borracho will be making a new and improved appearance, as will Chapek.

Left: Mr Robotics and The Rotor stare at Chapek, trying to figure out where the code rot is.

For those of you just tuning in, Roboexotica is of course the world-renown festival of cocktail robots:

Until recently, no attempts had been made to publically discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out.

Right: The Rotor corrupts the innocent, and the innocent like it.

We spent last night mumbling to ourselves, barking at each other to get out of the way, and most important, drinking beer. We also experimented with accelerants, and ways to make Kahlua tasty (I personally don’t think this is possible).

The Rotor made helpful suggestions about where to throttle what to make which flow a little smoother. Julie Andrews hid in the closet. Fugu The Deadly Hellbeast made sure everyone got kisses. Soma FM kept everybody sane-ish.

Mr. Robotics would like you to know that he hates robots. Really.

Chapek is in the background, having a servo issue. Or maybe it’s a software issue. Or maybe something’s not zeroed right. or maybe. . .

We take off for Vienna Sunday. Rotor will be at the Fortress of Solitude, cursing economy-class legroom, airline blackout dates, and tweaking Chassis’ brain. We hoist ein grosses bier in his honor.

Lenore from the superlative Evil Mad Scientists sends along this jolly web page with a ton of PhD level robotic goodness. Some of the videos have been taken down since, but you can read all about it. . .

Pico, the cutest, tiniest leetle sumobot OMG Evar, has a bit of video floating around the interwebs.

We’ve covered him before, but the good folks at BotJunkie reminded us.

They send us these:

All groaning should be directed to knickers@suiciebots.com where it will promptly be ignored.

[Thanks Rochelle!]

SRL went to RoboDock, and came back with some really fabulous pictures of things being torn apart in robotic glee:

It was of course, louder than loud, completely chaotic, possibly life-threatening and wildly inappropriate for children of all ages. We really wish we had been there.

Reminder friends and neighbors, Todd Blair is still in a coma in Amsterdam after his unfortunate and terrible accident. Please kick in and contribute to his cause if you can.

This little video montage out together by Dale Dougherty at Make: Magazine is dreamy and lyrical, and reflects RoboDock really nicely. Check out the Flaming Lotus Girls‘ Serpent Mother and the SRL show.

MAKE at Robodock

As one of the commenters on the original site says, “This makes me proud to be an American.”

So, this is not Truckasaurus Rex or Robosaurus, anybody got any ideas? Gator Tank? Mm?

The University Of Tokyo’s Lab for Intelligent Systems and Informatics has created Mowgli, a pneumatic frog:

So stable. So sexy. So delicious with tartar sauce.

Artificial muscles run by compressed air are nothing new, but this is a nice adaptation and it just jumps. . .so. . . high. . .

There’s a nice article that is not in Japanese here on Tech.co.uk

[Via The Raw Feed]

Did we do it? Did we *actually* scoop Lem Fugitt this time? Whoa.

I’ve seen a lot of hexapods in my life. Heck, a 480 pound hexapod was the ringbearer at our wedding.

But Matt Denton at Micro Magic Systems has made a hexapod that blows everything else away. Even bipeds. Not only is it dynamically balancing, but it can shift it’s weight over it’s feet without lifting them. Kind of like geeks when they try to dance at a hipster bar.

Watch how the ‘bot shifts its weight as Matt moves in and out. The robot not only tracks his proximity, but “keeps its distance.”

Want.
One.

[via robots-dreams]

Got $10? As in, less than the cost of dinner at Chevy’s? Or what you’d pay for two beers at a dive bar, that you wouldn’t even remember…

Spend it on your very own robot portrait - that you keep.

Ben Rollman of http://robotportrait.blogspot.com/, will make you a really nice hand painted color painting of the robot of your dreams. Ten measly bucks, and it’s good art! Even better, Ben videotapes the making of the piece, and then posts it to youtube. So you can watch him draw it. And within a week of ordering, the original shows up on your doorstep!

We got three done just for fun:

Robot Vulture

Sammy Twelve Switch

King of the Robots

I love the interwebs.

Erm… He’s only doing that so he can replace the pencil with pen.

For permanency.

Right?

Kawada’s HRP-2 (aka Promet) has been programmed to reproduce dance steps with the practiced grace of an electronic geisha.

So far the 128-pound (58-kilogram) dancebot has been taught the fluid motions of the Aizu-Bandaisan—a traditional Japanese folk dance—as well as more mundane tasks such as serving tea, carrying a table, and standing up from a prone position.

OK - now it should be noted, that I am the most jaded American roboticist I know. Been there, done that, flown half way ’round the world to see it, too.

The following video is the single coolest thing I’ve seen in robotic movement. Ever.

Better than Asimo.
Way better than Qrio.
And yes, even better than the micro-electronic hand that could grab the tobiko egg.

Watch this video and be awed.

I think Promet ought to call out Asimo to some seedy back alley in Shinjuku (filled with indigent tour-bots and broken down vacuums) and bitch slap him.

Of course, Lem knew about it ten months ago.