By Evan Ackerman
Last weekend BotJunkie was at RoboGames, so we owe you a couple weeks worth of robot awesomeness. Of course, we know you’re reading BotJunkie every day anyway, but still, we wouldn’t want you to miss an opportunity to relive it all.
We started off optimistically with a presentation from Rodney Brooks (of MIT and iRobot) about the forthcoming robotics revolution, got introduced to the cutest little robotic rat with an unpronounceable name, were overjoyed to find out that Pleo will be making a comeback, watched Nexi and pals rescue humans from a burning Navy destroyer, learned why exactly Pleo went extinct in the first place from one of the founders of Ugobe, watched PackBots doing awesome stuff (like parachute drops) in an iRobot promo video, found out what the problem is with android girlfriends, got scared by an exploding suicide snake robot being developed by the Israelis, watched robots preparing food and feeding people in Toyko, counted our change after seeing an $18 cardboard walking robot, wondered whether a snail robot that cleans buildings leaves a slime trail at the same time, watched R2-D2 and C3PO on Sesame Street, were tempted to turn vegetarian by a high speed cucumber slicing humanoid, learned how to turn your netbook into a robot, met a new Buzz Lightyear robot toy (since Toy Story 3 is only like a year away), were happy to see that the DEKA “Luke” robotic arm got 3 more years of funding, found out about a military project to create a wireless network with chirping cyborg insects, watched Psikharpax the robotic rat scuttle around, saw some kind of Mortal Kombat / Mario Kart deathmatch with LEGOs and balloons, and ended up marveling at a life-sized Gundam from Japan.
So far this week, we’ve already posted about a humanoid robot that makes coffee from scratch, a robot octopus posse t-shirt, the 2011 release of a movie version of the first play about robots, and some terrifyingly plausible micro air vehicles. All this robot stuff just keeps getting better and better, so make sure you don’t get left in the biological dust… BotJunkie: all the cool robots are doing it, you should too!
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