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!

How could I forget?!? Besides the kids rocking out on their robots, one of the best parts of the day was the unveiling of the wonderful cupcakes that Luscious Layers provided to commemorate our first workshop. The kids were so pleased with the post-robot treats! There were three awesome flavors: Chocolate (white frosting), Orange (yellow frosting) and Strawberry (green frosting). We HIGHLY recommend the orange flavored cupcake, they were quite dee-lish.

Thanks for helping to make our first workshop a triumphant (and tasty) success, Ashley Galliart of Luscious Layers! The kids and their parents flipped over your cakes, and we did too!

In celebration of our first workshops, Don commissioned the fine chef/artists of  Chicago’s best specialty bakery, Luscious Layers, to create for our special guests a masterpiece of B4T cupcakes! They will probably look something like those pictures above, but with our signature robots on them. Nom nom nom! By the way, how do we know that they are the best? Just look at this cake that Don had Luscious Layers make for my birthday this year!

This is a Necron Monolith, from Warhammer 40K. Click the image of the cake above to see what the real thing looks like. See any major difference? Thought not. If Luscious Layers can do that to a single cake, just imagine what they can do to a dozen cupcakes.