Tag Archive
aldebaran robotics arduino Art AUV boston dynamics carnegie mellon CES China contest DARPA design drone food georgia tech hack hexapod Humanoid iphone iRobot japan Japanese korea london Mars MIT Moon movie music nao NASA national robotics week robot robotics robots roomba ROS sculpture South Korea swarm tv UAV uk University of Washington willow garage wowwee
Dunne And Raby Robots
Dunne and Raby are a design team based in London that create designs using emerging technology to encourage social and cultural debates. Welcome to your future folks and it doesn’t look at all like the 1950′s version.
For their Technological Dreams Series from 2007, Dunne and Raby created 4 very different robots. Yes, the 4 objects next to the girl in the photo are the robots. Unfortunately the girl is not a robot.
It’s probably best if we let them describe the robots.
Robot 1: This one is very independent. It lives in its own world getting on with its work. We don’t really need to know what it does as long as it does it well. It could, for instance, be running the computers that manage our home. It has one quirk; it needs to avoid strong electromagnetic fields as these might cause it to malfunction. Every time a TV or radio is switched on, or a mobile phone is activated it moves itself to the electromagnetically quietest part of the room. As it is ring shaped, the owner could, if they liked, place their chair in its centre, or stand there and enjoy the fact that this is a good space to be in.
Robot 2: In the future products/robots might not be designed for specific tasks or jobs. Instead they might be given jobs based on behaviours and qualities that emerge over time. This robot is very nervous, so nervous in fact, that as soon as someone enters a room it turns to face them and analyses them with its many eyes. If the person approaches too close it becomes extremely agitated and even hysterical. Home security makes good use of this robot’s neurosis.
Robot 3: More and more of our data, even our most personal and secret information, will be stored on digital databases. How do we ensure that only we can access it? This robot is a sentinel, it uses retinal scanning technology to decide who accesses our data. In films iris scanning is always based on a quick glance. This robot demands that you stare into its eyes for a long time, it needs to be sure it is you. On another level, it asks what new forms of furniture might evolve in response to future technological developments.
Robot 4: This one is very needy. Although extremely smart it is trapped in an underdeveloped body and depends on its owner to move it about. Neediness is designed into very smart products to maintain a feeling of control. Originally, manufacturers would have made robots speak human languages, but over time they will evolve their own language. You can still hear human traces in its voice.
The Robots are in the permanent collections of MoMA, New York, and Fnac — Fond national d’art contemporain, Paris. I don’t think even ASIMO is in the MOMA.
Click through for a video.
Pushya And Pullya
Good vs evil. Darth Vader vs Jedi Knights. Its and old story with a new twist, robots.
Pullya is the good robot, obviously in white, and Pushya is the bad robot in black.
Pullya does all your chores like laundry and mowing the lawn, while Pushya sells your tv.
This fantastic concept design is by Paul Grader. See more pictures over at Yanko Design.
Artbots
Artbots has announced the lineup for their show this coming September in Dublin. From the press release:
We are very pleased to announce that ArtBots 2008 Dublin will take place on September 19-21, 2008, at Science Gallery at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
The show features 15 works by 16 artists from 9 countries, as well as performances, workshops, lectures, and an awards ceremony.
Included in the show is the fabulous robot shown here called iC Hexapod by Matt Denton. Matt has worked on many things, including some of the Harry Potter movies. iC Hexapod follows faces around and then posts there photo to it’s website hexapodrobot.com/ic/.
This looks to be a completely amazing show with some really talented folks showing their stuff.
See a video of iC Hexapod in action here.
Listen to the Artbots theme song here.
Giant Styrofoam Robot
Michael Salter, an assistant professor at the university of Oregon, has been busy making “Styrobots”.
Salter began working with Styrofoam about five years ago when he was working at Mount Olive College in North Carolina. His first solo show was at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Salter is more interested in making a statement about his love hate relationship with consumerism than money. The direct result of this is that so far all the robots have been smashed after the show is over.
The 22 foot tall robot shown here can be seen through October 19 as part of the San Jose Museum of Art’s exhibit entitled Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon.
Darth Vader Has Been Hiding Inside Barney
Check out what artist Matt Kirkland has discovered.
A skinnier Darth Vadar lives inside Barney. But seriously, check out what Matt has discovered in his latest project. From the artist’s website:
I’ve always been curious about stuffed animals that sing, dance, light up, or talk back. There must be a fascinating robot underneath the fur and fluff, right?
On his website, Matt has about 20 toy robots he has dissected including a monster, Winnie The Pooh, chicken dancing Elmo and more. See our previous post about What’s Inside Pleo.
Link via (Boing Boing)