As we mentioned earlier this year, Bunk Bots has kindly offered to donate a hefty shipment of its snuggle-tastic robots for our 2009 Winter Holiday Auction. We just received the box-o-bots, and to put it incredibly lightly, we are psyched! Click the picture above to check out all the awesome automated personalities Bunk Bots has plush-itized! Thank you for your contribution, Bunk Bots! On a side note, Don and I entered the contest we mentioned in the comment section of this post, and Don won the Spok Bunk Bot!!! Read on to see his entry and the prize!

We were so surprised to find that Don’s Spok Bunk Bot was sent along with a friend, a Night Vision Pinch! Click above to see the specs for Night Vision Pinch… he likes the ladies!

About the contest, the toy site www.plasticandplush.com asked the following question on April 06, 2009:

“Star Trek or Star Wars? And why?”

Here’s Don’s entry, a winner if I ever read one (by the way, he didn’t just come up with this on the fly, folks… this is his concrete belief):

“This is actually very simple. Though I realize fans of both have solid platforms for debate – Star Trek fans extolling the virtues of 24th century technology and Star Wars fans touting the universal influence of the force, for instance – there is one element that sets one apart from the other on a scale of merit.

And her name is Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

Not satisfied to enter into drawn our Star Trek moral debate or over-blasted Star Wars capital ship combat, Kathryn Janeway has a simple solution to any problem, no matter the complexity:

Point the ship at it and go. If possible, set the auto-destruct while doing so – if not, no biggie.

She is the wild card. She will see your Aluminum Falcon and raise you 700,000 metric tons black coffee fueled death wish.

You have a star destroyer? No issue, she has 2 tricobalt devices and she can deploy them while the ship is 4/5 of the way into your command console.

It’s pretty hard to use the force inside of a warp field breach – and that breach is only a command code away.

Oh, and she has removed the need for a first officer to back her decision. She tore that part out of the ship.

Remove Janeway and I think you have a 50/50 shot in any SW -VS- ST:WTF match.

Fact: She has not been removed, and will not be removed until she blows up her ship and your emperor with it.

Bonus: She once spent an episode arguing with HERSELF as to which one of her got to blow up her ship.

Double bonus: She lied and blew her own ship up before she got a chance to.”

Oh. Em. Gee. 

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank two very special contributors: Bunk Bots, the home of the awesomely stuffed robot, and the cool new web comic Robot in the City!

Think Robots are just for adults? Think again! Bunk Bots and Bots 4 Tots both agree that robots can and should be a part of a child’s life from as early on as possible, and Bunk Bots is redefining what that means by making their robots crib-capable! They come pre-programmed to love and be loved!

But they’re not just kid stuff- oh no siree! If that were the case, I wouldn’t want a million of them. I mean, who needs a couch when you have a kiddie pool full of Bunk Bots? Seriously.

Oh, and while I am posting pics of our new friends, you just have to check out my favorite Robot in the City comic. It begins like this:

Go check it out! We love this little guy, and cannot wait to follow the comedic adventures that will undoubtedly ensue between he and his gal pal, Elite!

NRDD - Nasal Relief Delivery Droid

That’s NRDD. He’s our Nasal Relief Delivery Droid. He supplies the tissues when one of us gets sick, or both of us watch a sad movie. No matter the drippy-nose related disaster, we can always count on NRDD.

NRDD isn’t a real robot, to be sure – he just looks like one – but we do have a pair of real life robots that live with us. As with many robots, these robots are both our friends and our partners. We consider our relationship with them a symbiotic one. We provide clean energy, maintenance and lots of love and they – these two at least – clean the floors.

Addencientia & Meticulor

Meet Addencientia and Meticulor. 

Addencientia (on the left), “Addy“, for short, is an iRobot Scooba floor washing robot. She uses a water and soap solution to clean our wood floors.

Meticulor (on the right), “Metti“, for short, is an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaning robot. He sweeps up our wooden floors and vacuums the carpet of the rooms that have it.

Together they make a great team and we really appreciate all of their hard work. I am sure they appreciate ours as well, as we take great care of them.

What makes them robots, though? Why are they not just a weirdly shaped mop and a cordless vacuum?

Addy and Metti are machines that perform work. They do so with little or no intervention from people. As long as we keep them clean and well maintained, they will continue to keep our house clean and well maintained for us.

Meticulor has a schedule that he uses to determine when he is going to start cleaning up. Let me tell you, if you are bare-foot when Metti starts you’d better head for the hills or find yourself some slippers, because he is a bot on a mission and he doesn’t let measly toes get in the way. 

See what I mean?

Addy likes to be told when to clean, but once she is told, she goes off on her own. We don’t tell either of them where to clean or how to clean it or even how long to clean. They have adaptive programs, both of them, to determine the best route, the best amount of time and the best attention to detail to keep our house looking great.

Addy and Metti are the perfect example, I think, of people and robots co-existing happily. If we treated them any differently than we do – if we treated them any differently than any other member of the family – surely they would fall into disrepair and do a poor job. If we love them, treat them well and respect them, they will so the same for us.

It is possible that one day robots will be able to think like we do. When that day comes, I’d like to introduce one of them to our good friends Addy and Metti. I am sure they’d get along.