One of the cool things about RoboGames is all the people we meet from different walks of life. Most are not engineers. Many are artists, some are blue-collar workers, some kids, some white-collar, some retirees…. You get the picture.
Of all the many people I’ve met, one of the most talented is I-Wei Huang, who made the above steam powered robots. He’s also a creator, animator, rigger, screen play writer, and voice talent (yes, he really is that multi-talented) and he’s currently looking for a job.
If you’re in need of an amazingly talented robot builder, animator, illustrator, thinker, or doer, I-Wei is your guy (in my experience, work ethic is more important than IQ or talent, but I-Wei has all three in spades). Look at the below examples, and then recruit him.
I must say, I-Wei has the single greatest resume I’ve ever seen. I wish that I had the balls to write a resume like that.
The Orb Swarm has been blogged by Radiolab, a show on WNYC that explores and experiments with science, philosophy, sound and everything else.
They have written a very nice article. Read it here. They have also linked to an intriguing short doc on how the swarm works, explained by the excellent Michael Prados, Simran Gleason, Coreyfro, and Steve “‘Dillo” Okay.
I have embedded the video here too. Also check out The Orb Swam Blog for up-to-the-minute Swarm news and updates, and and The Rotor Show (A fine product of Rotorbrain Industries) for more Swarmalicious video.
Charlie Kemp, a transplanted Dallasite and current director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Healthcare Robotics, recently unveiled a new robot he designed that retrieves an object after you’ve highlighted it with a green laser pointer.
Sound boring?
Then think of it this way: the beer fetcher.
Granted, Kemp and his team are talking about the health care applications of their automaton, dubbed El-E, but we all know this is about getting your Duff without getting off your duff (Duffman says, can’t get enough of that wonderful Duff. Oh, yeah!). . .
. . .Of course, if El-E does get into the bartender game, he’ll (she’ll? it’ll?) have to compete with the less cutting-edge but more aesthetically pleasing Chassis the beer-pouring robot.
In yet another episode of living the life you wish you had, last Friday I extracted myself from the RoBunker and went to witness The Head Rotor and Al Honig, world famous artists, show off Chassis the beer pouring robot.
So maybe androids don’t dream of electric sheep, but thanks to a new project by artists Brendan Burns and Fernando Orellana, they can dance about the electric sheep *you* dream of:
Using recorded brainwave activity and eye movements during REM sleep to determine robot behaviors and head positioning, “Sleep Waking” acts as a way to “play-back” dreams. Through this piece we hope to investigate one of the possible human-robot relationships.
I just got a couple of videos anonymousishly IMed to me as a part of the Great CarNAYgie Mellon Conspiracy. Daniel H. Wilson, the “mild mannered” humorist and author of How To Survive A Robot Uprising is uses his perverse powers of reverse psychology to make us think he’s on the side of the humans. Hah. Tis video shows us differently by trying to lull us into a false sense of security.
Yes, it’s Keepon, the infamous, adorable, squishy, slightly testicular robot that is actually much more complex than one would think (even Mr. Robotics, jaded fuck that he is, admitted this). Don’t let Keepon’s cuteness fool you. He’ll be just as much a part of the revolution as Skynet.
I almost went to CarNAYgie Mellon once. I wanted to move to Pittsburgh and be a Penguins fan. Alas, it was not to be, I only made it into H&SS and not engineering or drama. Bastards.
They just sent me their latest project, a Wind Harp in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had never heard of a wind harp before, it’s a neat concept. They keep tweaking theirs with things like solar powered preamps and are thinking of experimenting with multiples strings and pickups.
Everything looks like it came from Home Depot or Radio Shack, which is my favorite sort of project!
Aside from being a cool project, the Wind Harp is really, really nice to listen to, especially if you need a bit of relaxation background noise.
It’s intentional/accidental cutting-edge ambient music. They should have a bin for this at Amoeba (actually, they probably do).
Listen to his shoutcast here.
Botronics is also a finalist for the 2008 Instructables and Universal Laser Cutter Contest! We wish them all sorts of luck, and also pity them for the number of calls they are going to get from friends asking to use their new laser cutter.
At last, the Metroccolis Inventors of Mechanical Evolution have finally perfected the ultimate breakthrough in personal robotics. Your Personal Robot is on sale right now, today, for normal household use. Your Personal Robot makes the everyday tasks of life just that much easier. Your Personal Robot is safe, sanitary, and effective for all your robot-oriented needs. Your Personal Robot will clean your house. Your Personal Robot will do your homework. Your Personal Robot will love you when your friends do not.
This unprecedented research has been going on since 1996, proving once again that science is sexy, and you would totally buy it a drink if you were cool enough.
(I must confess to a small piece of my history here: I went to circus school. I am a clown by birth and training. Your Personal Robot must be cool, because I am posting it against my very genetics. Having said that, I will say this to my brethren: WARNING: Mimes.)
. . .to give you all a heads- up about an event happening in mere short weeks in San Francisco: The official premiere of the Doggie Diner Head Trip, a documentary film by Truth Serum and Central Services productions!
It is a gorgeous documentary chronicling a cross-country odyssey through the highways and byways of America, trailing the Holy Trinity Of The Dogminican Order. It is notable for capturing a vanishing era in American History: the institution of the roadside attraction and the freedom for freaks to sit in Piggly Wiggly parking lots for hours and hours and not be arrested.
Here’s the trailer:
The whole shebang begins at 2pm on Saturday, January 26th at Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda, California. There will be performers from near and far, live show by the Cyclecide Bike Rodeo, and we;ll probably figure out a way to get into a lot of trouble before the day is out, because we get bored.
Why is this interesting to SB readers? Well first of all: bicycles perverted for a noble purpose. That’s reasonably technical. Also: This documentary was produced by our dear friends Johnny Law and Fletcher Fleudujeon, and Mr. Robotics and I traveled across country in the bus for the documentary.
We spent quality time broken down in notable Autozone parking lots across the nation, I fought sleep deprivation and aliens driving the chase vehicle across New Mexico in the dead of night, hoping the truckers would see me before they hit the bus (which didn’t have hazard lights and did a top speed of 45 mph on a downslope with a tailwind). Mr. Robotics wore that stupid wig, and kept kicking $tephen Ra$pa in the head while he was sleeping, and there was a haircut given with razor-sharp nail scissors in a moving vehicle while we evaded the cops.
You just won’t see this in the film.
See what you could get away pre-9/11 in a San-Francisco-Values-loaded 1947 Gillig school bus (RIPShoo Shoo Shoo Baby). Come on down and say you were there when, this sort of thing just doesn’t happen much anymore, people.
I am presently subsumed by huge convulsions of want. The Take-A-Seat by Jelte Van Geeste records your rfid/laser scanned membership card and follows you around until you leave whatever public place you are frequenting.
The innumerable CTP, a San Francisco artist who plays around with such event as The Power Tool Drag Races, Dorkbot, RoboGames, RoboExotica, and other things that most people find neat-o, has re-launched his spiffy site, Kineticworld.com
Go read it, then come back here and let me know if he covered anything good so I can steal it.
Meantime, here’s a video of CTP in action at last year’s MakerFaire:
