DocPop alerts us to Ganzbot, a personable (robotable?) device that speaks and emotes. Ganzbot is designed to be hooked into microblogging site Twitter, which, among others, has ensnared MissySB and the Rotor in it’s addictive embrace.

Um, Mr. Robotics, we found your eye.

It’s perhaps a little too close to Arse Elektronika to post this particular and literally juicy item¹, but here’s a robotic hand made out of cucumbers:

¹ You folks have filthy minds which is why we love you

The Artbots 2008 Robot Talent Show is this weekend, in Dublin, Ireland (whoo international art stars!).

The show features 15 works by 16 artists from 9 countries, as well as performances, workshops, lectures, and an awards ceremony. Participating works were selected from an international open call for “robotic art and art-making robots”, and represent a broad and inclusive cross-section of the tremendous range of creative art and robotics activity.

The ArtBots 2008 Dublin participants are: Paula Matthusen (USA), Leo Peschta (Austria), Koichiro Mori (Japan), Matt Denton (UK), Yuliya Lanina (Russia/USA), Che-Wei Wang & Kristin O’Friel (Japan/USA), Matthew Gardiner (Australia), Ralf Baecker (Germany), Byeong Sam Jeon (Korea/USA), Peter Redmond (Ireland), Allison Kudla (USA), Jack Pavlik (USA), Joan Healy (Ireland), Christopher Kaczmarek (USA), and Riley Harmon (USA).

Sound artist Ray Lee (UK) will celebrate the opening of the show on Friday with two presentations of “Forcefield”, a kinetic sound machine performance. Metal fabricator/artisan Phillip Isohe (Kenya) has created this year’s Robots’ Choice Award, and designer Eliza Gauger (USA) created the 2008 ArtBots t-shirt design. During the show members of the EU funded Living with Robots and Interactive Companions project will lead discussions with the artists and audience members.

Douglas Repetto, one of the curators, is an old SB pal, so when he is rich and famous we say we knew him when. We will also be able to wave at him from the police barricades when he gets out of the limo for those red carpeted events and he may even *glance our way* !

The show looks completely awesome with some really exceptional pieces and interesting-sounding panels (for example, “Are we living in a Robotic Cargo Cult?” which question of course wonder about every day).

So, if you are in the Dublin area, grab a pint and head down to Artbots 2008, we wish we could be there!

It’s getting gently hectic here in The Uncanny Valley, what with us heading off for points south for MakerFaire Austin, but here is a neat thing that appeared in my inbox this morning:

It is a giant mechanical flower that opens and closes at dawn and dusk, made by students at the University Of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

So if wiggling ICE-powered donkey’s weren’t bad enough, Boston Dymanics now gives us robotic spidermen. Well, spiderbugs… (is that redundant?)

RiSE is a small six-legged robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE’s feet have claws, micro-claws or sticky material, depending on the climbing surface. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and a fixed tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents. RiSE is about 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s.

Each of RiSE’s six legs is powered by two electric motors. An onboard computer controls leg motion, manages communications, and services a variety of sensors. The sensors include an inertial measurement unit, joint position sensors for each leg, leg strain sensors and foot contact sensors.

Future versions of RiSE will use dry adhesion to climb sheer vertical surfaces such as glass and metal. Boston Dynamics is developing RiSE in conjunction with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, Stanford, and Lewis and Clark University. RiSE is funded by the DARPA Defense Sciences Office.

All those beautiful, beautiful visions spinning about in your head have been made into gorgeous alcoholic reality. Ladies and gentlemen, Bar2D2:

Bar2D2 is capable of making your basic cocktails, and also incorporates a beer elevator to put a frosty brew into your hands upon request. The beer elevator is the business bits of a Harbor Freight electric caulking gun.

The base is a electric power chair, and he can schmooze with the cocktail crowd with his extensive R2D2 vocabulary, courtesy an R2D2 voice module and a Team Delta RCE210 relay board.

The beer elevator is enclosed by a spiffy polycarbonate cocoon, and the ice bucket lights up.

How prosh can a cocktail-slinging robot get??

Jamie Price, the builder, has a great set of photos of his progress here.

Bar2D2 has been a scant five months in the making, by a guy who has a day job and everything. Jamie credits stick-to-itiveness and BAD (Beer Aided Design) for his success.

Here’s his parts list:

My goal:
Create an rc bot that is loosely (very) modeled after R2D2 for the sole purpose of being a mobile bar/entertainment center.

Features:
Clear lexan dome that houses a 6 liquor bottle carousel
Cups that have LED color shift (damn I love ebay)
Motorized Ice bin (remotely actuated)
Beer dispensing elevator (remotely actuated)
Neon, LED lighting accents
Motorized drivetrain
R2D2 sound effects
12 volt sla powered with on board ac/dc wall converter for long party times
2 victor 883 escs
futaba 6 channel radio
materials: metal, 3/4″ finish grade ply, sintra, lexan, chrome, plastic

If all goes well (and it has been!) Bar2D2 will be accepting his public and signing autographs at DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, August 29-September 1st (that’s next weekend campers!).

We’re also hoping Bar2D2 makes it to Vienna for RoboExotica this year.

[via The Robot Fighting League Forum]

Okay not technically a robot, but let’s file this one under “kinetic art”:

Everyone present cried and took lots of pictures:

Yes, that is a diagram of a wee small orb’s first shaky foray into autonomous movement. We are beyond proud over here in the RoBunker, because hell that must have been approximately a ton and a half of hell to make it all go. From Michael Prados, One Of The Lead Swarmies and Possessor of The Will To Orb:

Jon, Niladri, and I coded all day, and then went to the soccer field to sit in the dark and code and debug some more. The culmination of this massive brain exertion is the stumbling attempt at a straight line in the linked jpg [above]. It may not look like much, but for the first time, all the major pieces of orb navigation are working together to autonomously guide the orb along a specified path. We are giving it a way point 20m in front of its initial position, and asking it to go there.

Le Roteur Superieur commemorates this historic moment with un petit pastiche de Seuss:

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your Orbs.
You have code in your SPU
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the SWARM who’ll decide where to roll.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your nice IMU and your SPU full of code,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good road.

And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.

It’s opener there
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to Orbs who are brainy
and swarmy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just roll right along.
You’ll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL ROLL!

Lem over at Robots-Dreams was musing about this pic he came across on the interwebs, and wanted to know more about it.

Well, my friends, this robot is the work of a robot freak from Oakland, California named Justin Grey, whom we have had the pleasure and privilege of working with on many occasions. Justin builds gorgeous fire-based instruments of irresistible destruction.

I have asked him for more info about his newest creature, but in the meantime here is a video of a robot he made last year, named Robot Libby after his dog:

See more of his work at his blog.

I love me a good bit of techno peasant triumph themed industrial blight. Animation by Shane Acker.

[via Dailymotion]

Beautiful organic spooky robotic art. THIS is what we’re talking about!

See videos here. Yum.

[Thanks Engadget!]

Self playing robot band! A great way to post without actually posting anything!

They even have a MySpace just like a pink, squishy, organic band.

We’re still recovering from Post-Robogames burnout, and prepping for more events coming up soon. You’d think we woulda learned our lesson, but no. Actual commentary and posts will continue tomorrow, I promise.

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.

Sweet 3D renderings of very whimsical robots. Want one.

Andre Kutscherauer [via Bot Junkie]