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.

[via FreshCreation via Core77]

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:

. . .is, of course, the noble squid. My personal favorite species is Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, but Laughing Squid has alerted us to Royal Deluxe’s “Le Calmar Géant à Rétropropulsion“:

It’s a steampunk-tastic inspirational ride-on piece that fits with Royal Deluxe’s mechanical interactive giant mobile street theater aesthetic. Another thing that made me feel all intelligent is the fact that we noticed that the squid moves down the track tentacles-first, which seems confusing until you remember that tentacles-first is, of course, backwards for a squid.

[This post dedicated to Dr. Jen Gittzus, Squid Goddess YC SY '98, who is not dead but also probably not reading this page either. Hi Gittzus.]

Cybestein Robots of the UK has a great appearance robot, Titan.

This is the best puppeteering I’ve seen. There’s still a guy inside the suit, but the verisimilitude is really good!

Click the photo for a nice video.

Really, they are. Please everyone, come on down to the Robots Are Art Show, Contest, Weenie Roast and Singalong!

The show runs from December 13th to January 13th with a fun and exciting Gala on Saturday December 15th, from 6pm until midnight:

Robots will serve you Beer, paint paintings and even a disgruntled homeless robot will be on display. A presentation on the history of robotics by Frank Garvey will be shown at 6pm, along with raffle prizes and free robotic magazines.

This event will encompass a diverse group of robotic artists including mixed media, painters and kinetic artists. The contest will be 100% violence free*, and will focus on form, function, and fun. Prizes will be given for categories such as overall artistic aesthetics, unusual functionality, robots as a reflection of society, and incorporation of unusual objects to name a few.

This art show features the exciting premiere of Chassis, a beer robot created by The Head Rotor and illustrious kinetic artist Al Honig.

Mr. Robotics will also be judging the contest, along with Monty and Trevor Blackwell from Anybots.

Come on down for cookies and juice and nifty robot projects!

*(Because one-legged men in asskicking contests are not violent)

The Flaming Lotus Girls have come out with their all-new 2-year fire art cheesecake calendar!

Buy one for all your gifting needs!

Who doesn’t like bunches of hot women (and men), artfully photographed with some of the most amazing and incomprehensibly awesome fire art in the world?

For all you hippie types there’s also nice photos of the Black Rock Desert but Seriously, come on, GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! (and guys) FIRE FIRE FIRE (fire!).

Buy lots of calendars and tell all your friends about the world’s premiere women-centric fire arts group! The FLGs, they do not kid around when it comes to in-depth pyromania.

Well, I think the title just about says it all.

Exactly what I’ve been missing in my life. From the VIDA prizes for art and artificial life (or latex, servos, and fake fur).

Waitaminit — latex, servos, and fake fur? That’s kinda hot!

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.

Charlie sends us this link to Australian Mary Nowsky’s blog Autonomous Mutations.

The blog is very well researched, *and* they are fans of the Flaming Lotii, Kal Spelletich and The Seemen, and Christian Ristow.

This is where we keep The Rotor when we’re not using him.

Wednesday night, DorkbotSF held a fab benefit for Todd Blair, a stunningly amazing artist and teacher who was in a horrible forklift accident at Robodock in Amsterdam.

We had an auction, a silent auction, and presentations by interesting misfits. We drank beer, we ate delicious experimental treats by Mark Powell and we all we absolutely soggy with adoration, family and Pier 33 fish odor by the end of the evening. The die-hards who stayed to the end called Amsterdam to send some of the love to Alex and Todd. There were tears, laughter and jumbo DIY igniter boards. We raised a pile of cash for taking care of Todd and Alex and a good time was had by all on this bittersweet occasion.

Karen Marcelo has uploaded some pictures of the event to the interwebs. Here’s her follow-up note:

hi all

thank you to kyle minor for hosting us at his great space! thank you to eric paulos for MCing and our speakers:

ken goldberg
eric paulos
johannes grenzfurthner/monochrom
steve lassovzsky
joe grand

and especially to mark pauline a great close to the evening with lots of stories of the show at robodock and todd’s contributions to SRL.

also thanks to all our donors with special appreciation to david pescovitz and our friends at boingboing for their very generous donation which is SOLD at auction! and all of you that donated your skills, time, items.

thanks to our auctioneers mike dingle and jon sarriugarte and the rest of the auction team: alan and ellen anzalone, ralf burgert, rafflers sabrina merlo and jill miller.

thanks also to marc powell for catering, hopefully he’ll post his menu - it was awesome! including his tech gourmet crew among them geo wanking guru rich gibson!

thanks to pete macomber and wendi flybutter for bartending and all the SRL crew who came toghether to help make this happen. special thanks to nina alter and david calkins.

thanks to our door queens: lori dorn and simone davalos

and thanks and congrats to tcho amazing chocolate factory by the bay for winning the grand prize auction of the night, the boingboing ad! we appreciate your generosity!

and to all of you for coming out and supporting todd! the fundraiser exceeded my expectations and this does indeed put a nice dent in the expenses todd and alex face but this is a long haul, as you all know, coma / head injury recovery is a process that takes years so stay tuned for the other events coming up. hopefully you’ll have fun while supporting todd blair who has done so much for SRL, dorkbot, CCA, and kinetic art communities.

It was one of those great night where everybody showed up 100% and restored everybody else’s faith in humanity, or at least the humanity that exist among the gear head robot kinetic art people of San Francisco.

This is Lev, built by the fine folks at Moonmilk Labs. He will be playing Patsy Cline’s mellow favorite, “Crazy”:

The other video he has available is theremin and a drummer named Thumpbot, playing “crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. I sense a theme.

[via CNET]

Heheh. Hehheh. Heheh. Heh. As it were.

Arse elektronika surges forth in an orgasmic rush of (intellectual) stimulation. We’ve had Moanin’ Lisas, learned discourse on internet pr0n and privacy, discourse on pr0n as an engine for advancing technology, and many other things, all in the homey surroundings of Kink.com’s Porn Palace dungeon. Come on by and check it out.

Above, qDot demonstrates his original version of the warning sticker The Rotor riffed on back a few entires.

The Dorks are coming out in force next week for a benefit for Todd Blair, who was injured in a bad accident a couple of weeks ago.

There’s going to be a killer lineup of neato speakers, and 100% of the proceeds go to Todd’s care.

So give freely, or else.

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.

So cunning, so delicate: