Bill and Mark Sherman are prolific bot builders who we are lucky enough to have compete at RoboGames.

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.

Warren Ellis channels all robots, everywhere, when he repackages the Three Laws:

Robots do not want to have sex with you. Are you listening, Japan?

[Thanks Matt! (via Le Boing)]

. . .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.]

So one of the cooler non-robot websites i read regularly is TikiBarTV. For those of you who like tiki drinks, cocktail culture, or heck, just funny videos - you should check out their site.

Of course, they like robots too. In fact, they made a cocktail robot:

See how many cool robot movie references you can catch. And if you need a 2008 calendar, well… the Lala pin-up calendar isn’t a shabby way to go.

When I die, I hope the angels are half as sexy as Lala.

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.

. . .cats and dogs, living together. . .

From that sterling paper of record, the UK Metro:

People will marry robots, says scientist

Artificial intelligence researcher David Levy was awarded a PhD today by a Dutch university for his thesis, Intimate Relationships With Artificial Partners.

The Head Rotor, august recipient of one of those PH things himself (are they printed on litmus paper?) no doubt revels in the new addition to the company of he and his ilk.

Those crazy kids down at Hanson Robotics made their way to the Wired NextFest

This is Einstein Hubo, the robot body with the head of Albert Einstein. The face is made of Hanson’s spiffy development, Frubber. It looks, moves and feels like skin and is one of those things that can be very Uncanny Valley if you’re not careful.

They brought th newest addition to the Hanson Family, Xeno! Xeno is billed at The World’s First Complete Robot, in that he can see, hear, react and walk! He’s also cute as a button.

Trossen Robotics, that fine purveyors of all things that buzz and go *bing!*, has announced HARD COLD CASH PRIZES for their monthly Robot Project Contest.

Actualy, thety had hard cold cash prizes before, but they have doubled the amounts so now it’s HARD COLD CASH!

Here’s a bit from them:

For those unaware, every month we are hosting a contest for people who are creating cool projects in robotics, home automation, interactive arts, RFID, or similar technical DIY projects. Last month was so much fun that we decided to double the winnings.

The Trossen Robotics Monthly “Submit Your Project and WIN Contest!”

Trossen Robotics Wants To Know What You Are Building. If you have a cool project that you’ve built it’s time to make some money showing it off.

What sort of projects can you submit, you ask?

Robotics, HCI, home automation, RFID, art projects, useful mods & hacks, fun/entertaining projects, etc. Have you made wireless entry into your car? Did you make an electric backyard catapult? Figure out a way to have your robot take over humanity? Awesome! Homebrew/DIY projects are just as good as improving an off the shelf item. Complete systems or components for systems are all welcome in our book. If you created a vision tool for a robot, a keyless RFID based entry lock, a Rube Goldberg invention, or even part of a home automation, that’s cool too! It could be some navigation or voice recognition software or even a new drive train. We love projects that focus on solving particular problems because then others can use those ideas in their projects.

Sounds good and all, but what’s the prize, you ask?

September 2007 - Certificate to: Trossen Robotics

1st place - $200

2nd place - $100

3rd place - $50

To find out all the details, visit us on the web!

Good luck to everyone, and we hope to hear from you soon!

To motivate you in you quest, here’s a picture of SB’s Mom with a Trossen Robotics sticker stuck to her:

We’re here live and on the scene for the Singularity Summit, put on by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. We have a passel of Robonovas for playing with, and there is serious brainpower in the auditorium. We may have a mini singularity just sitting here, if we haven’t already. We feel pretty singular, out here in the lobby with the robots.

Rodney Brooks is giving his keynote speech, Kevin Kelly, Ray Kurzweil, Paul Saffo and other such luminaries are here in one form or another (Ray Kurzweil is going to be teleconferencing in after lunch).

We’re really excited about the fact that RU Sirius is going to be recording us for his video blog. More info on that as it happens!

For when the metal ones decide to come for you.

I never, ever get sick of watching this.

Cute little lethal machine presented by 5VOTLCORE, technology artists presenting at the other DEAF con, the Dutch Electronic Art Festival.

So cute. So lethal. So many artists with excellently executed white-boy dreadlocks. Yes.

5VOLTCORE has also done a few other nifty projects involving electricity, feedback and chaos. Their black and edgily designed website will fill you with existential dread and the feeling that someday, if you wear enough leather, you too, could be one of the cool kids.

Don’t trust them with your kids
Don’t invite them to play bridge.

SB fan and all around with-it guy Eddie Codel has just posted an interview with Captured! By Robots on the superlative video blog, Geek Entertainment TV!

Captured! By Robots is a band that was formed by a human, but taken over by the robots he constructed for his backup band. They have smart mouths, torture their human, and you know they will be the ones pulling the trigger when the revolution comes.

Here’s a nifty little article that found us here in the Robunker about ways you can become the cyborg you’ve always dreamed of being:

If you’ve managed to keep all your limbs and if implants turn you off, you can still become somewhat bionic with your accessories. The Fossil - Bluetooth caller ID watch notifies you when your phone rings with a discreet vibrating sensation and an OLED display that reveals the caller’s name and/or number. This watch also accepts text messages. The drawback to the price of this watch (currently $250.00) is that you need to obtain Bluetooth technology for it to work.

Hm, digital watches may once again be a pretty neat idea.

We here in the Robunker have been scheming about becoming cyborgs for awhile now. The problem we have is that we can’t decide whether to merely improve our hearing or just get really, really good at making precision cocktails.