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