A pardon we beg from all of our bot-tastic readers and Twitter-followers for such a prolonged absence! Our two week adventure turned into four times that, packed full of traveling, family and investigations into prospective opportunities for future Bots 4 Tots development. To be certain, though, our minds were never far from the world of robotics!

One of our adventures took Don and I to Science World at TELUS World of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia. There, we were delighted by the robotic band in the Our World exhibit; we brought it to life for our enjoyment purely by alternate energy sources FTW! Also, we visited Science World’s Omnimax Theatre where we viewed the very well-executed and touching film, Roving Mars. Robots in space get me every time.

But wait, there’s more! Our good friends at Luscious Layers, who have kindly provided cupcakes for our participating Bots 4 Tots youngsters in the past, have asked for our help in roboticizing (I just made that word up. Take that Merriam-Webster.) cakes. Yes, you read correctly. Robot cakes. Boosh. We started where most burgeoning hobby electronics projects start: we lit an LED. In our first cooperative project, we effected a very impressive cake that included lit LEDs as part of the sky-motif decoration. It is a rather extraordinary design because all you need to do is insert the LEDs into the cake and they will light up, and furthermore you can cut a slice including an LED out of it and the slice will come out cleanly and the LED will turn off as the slice separates from the rest of the cake. Can you guess how we did it? Hint: we did not electrify the cake.

And then there was Halloween, quite possibly our favorite day of the year. It turns out that this is also true for our friends at Luscious Layers; they decided that this “All Hallows Even” was the perfect opportunity to take our epicurean madness to the next level. Behold: the Arduino-animated, palatable-yet-programmable, raucously-raspberry-filled-red-velvet Zombie Cake from Beyond the Grrrraaavvve! Where will we go from here? Only time will tell.

Last but not least, we have also been spending a good deal of these past two months discussing the future of Bots 4 Tots. Don and I have decided to make some exciting site and program changes, which I will post more on in the very near future! We are also in the midst of planning our upcoming Winter 2009 auction (featuring the always awesome Bunk Bots), the specifics of our planned Winter 2009/2010 workshop sessions, and lots of other good stuff to ensure that kids will be building robots well into the new year. Thanks to all of you who have helped and are helping to make Bots 4 Tots a successful program!

As mentioned in our last blog post, the Robot Hall of Fame has found a new home at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA. On behalf of the Robot Hall of Fame, we proudly announce this year’s inductees.

• NASA Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity
• iRobot Roomba (WOOT!!!! You go, Meticulor!)
• DaVinci Medical Robot System
• Huey, Dewey, and Louie, from the 1971 film “Silent Running”
• T-800 Terminator, from the 1984 film “The Terminator”

source

Congratulations Class of 2010! Read on for more information about the Robot Hall of Fame!

As you can see from this year’s inductees, both real and fictional robots have been inducted into the hall of fame since its inception in 2003.

“Robots from Science – These are real robots that have served useful or potentially useful functions and demonstrated unique skills in accomplishing the purpose for which they were created. These may also be robots created primarily to entertain, as long as they function autonomously.

Robots from Science Fiction – These are fictional robots that have inspired us to create real robots that are productive, helpful, and entertaining. These robots have achieved worldwide fame as fictional characters and have helped form our opinions about the functions and values of real robots.” source

The creation of the Robot Hall of Fame was announced on the 30th of April, 2003, at the Opening Gala Celebration  for the RoboCup First American Open. (You may remember our recent post about the Robocup. The American Open is a local Robocup event, whereas the one we blogged about was the international competition; both are part of the same family of events).

If you can, I encourage you to visit the Robot Hall of Fame. You can view up-close many of the robots who have been honored with induction there, including many of our favorite television/movie robots of the past and present. Bask in the robotic glow of  star-bots such as:

• Maria
• Gort
• Robby
• B-9
• HAL 9000
• Dewey
• and last but certainly not least, C-3PO & R2-D2

Finally, you can take a look at this video to get a peek at the Robot Hall of Fame… as if you needed more of a reason to go!

2009 has proven to be a very exciting year for robots everywhere. The Carnegie Mellon’s Robot Hall of Fame announces that it will have a permanent residence at the Robo World exhibit! Roboworld is the world’s largest permanent robotics exhibition, and is located in the historic Carnegie Science Center, one of four museums founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1895.

“Hardly a month goes by without news-making innovations coming out of local universities and companies engaged in the robotics industry. Yet for all of this activity, connections between robotics and everyday life are often unknown or misunderstood by the general public. At the same time, public interest in robotics is high, and the topic can effectively engage people of all ages. Robots fascinate us, and the topic can be used to motivate youth toward careers in science and technology. Carnegie Science Center’s roboworld™ exhibition captures the essence of the fascination of robotics. And what better city to host the world’s largest permanent robotics exhibit than Pittsburgh, where so many innovations have occurred already? (1)

…For the past decade Pittsburgh, also known by the moniker ‘Roboburgh,’ has been identified as one of only a handful of locations leading the country in developing cutting-edge robotics technology. From the establishment of The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 1979, to the formation of The Robotics Corridor educational initiative, to the opening of roboworld™, Pittsburgh has been at the forefront of robotics education, development, and public interaction.(2)” sources: {1, 2}

Not only does the exhibit sound fantastic, but I highly recommend checking out the site too! For example, as a part of the RoboWorld exhibit, the museum has created a fun website to entertain and educate entitled  RobotTRUTH.com! There you can do lots of cool things, including:

• Take a quiz to determine your Robo IQ.
• Watch interfacing robo-puppies.
• Convert your secret messages to binary code! For example:

01001001001000000111011101100001011011100111010000100000011

10100011011110010000001100111011011110010000100100000010010

000110110101101101001011000010000001101001011101000010011101

110011001000000110111101101110011011000111100100100000001110

000010000001101000011011110111010101110010011100110010000001

10000101110111011000010111100100100000000011010000101001100

010011110010010000001100011011000010111001000100001