Robot Post Mk. II

August 5, 2007 7:54 PM

A better article about robots. More interesting robots than I posted about last time. Cute, tiny transforming robots. And for those of you less interested in real robots, 2-XL, the toy that got me obsessed with the whole thing as a kid.
posted by StrikeTheViol (14 comments total)

And also robot dinosaurs, temp robots, and a via.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 8:03 PM on August 5, 2007

More on MIT lab on PBS Nova ScienceNow.
posted by ao4047 at 8:10 PM on August 5, 2007

I had this robot thing when I was a kid. It was sort of spherical, with a keypad on top of its head for programming it to do things. I wish I could remember what it was called.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:19 PM on August 5, 2007

Holy shit.

Man this is kind of weird. When I was a kid I saw all sorts of stuff about robots, and they were not very impressive at all. Lots of beeping, very slow moving, fixed motion. And then I heard nothing. Now, I'm hearing about robots again and they are amazingly impressive, compared to what I remembered.
posted by delmoi at 8:30 PM on August 5, 2007

Never take your eyes off the robots, delmoi. Lesson one.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:16 PM on August 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

The videos are fantastic. Not because it suggests a robotic future though, but because it demonstrates that we are finally getting machines to really be able to balance themselves.

This is important, because any who has looked into a real crystal ball has seen that robots are not the future, giant mechs are.

It will start off as power armor and just keep getting bigger and bigger, until we are all playing Battletech, Mechwarrior or Armored Core for real.
posted by quin at 9:39 PM on August 5, 2007

I, of course, will stick will small fast moving mechs till I can afford an Atlas or a Mad Cat MKIII.

Because that's the way I roll.
posted by quin at 9:52 PM on August 5, 2007

Mad Cat MKIII

Inner Sphere scum! Timber Wolf 4 evar!
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:57 PM on August 5, 2007

delmoi, possibly the RB5X (an educational robot that's been around for at least 15 or 20 years by now)?
posted by hattifattener at 10:03 PM on August 5, 2007

a few 2-XL tapes are still lurking about in my Mom's basement, sadly no 2-XL unit though, and lately she's been begging me to get rid of what's left of HERO-1 . something about needing the space back since I've been out of the house for 15 years now... oh how I lusted for a HERO-2000 but then I got interested in girls and my knowledge of 6808 machine code went out the window.

oddly, "hey baby, are you AA 0200 72 FA 4B 20FE RESET AD 0200 ?" just didn't impress the chicks.
posted by spish at 10:07 PM on August 5, 2007

ROOOOBBBBOOOOTTT

HUUUUMMMMAAANNN

ROCK. ROBOT ROCK.
posted by sparkletone at 11:37 PM on August 5, 2007

I mean this one 'cause the sound is better. But oh, well. One bad copy and paste won't cause the robots to rise up and destroy us all, right?

Right?
posted by sparkletone at 11:42 PM on August 5, 2007

2XL was the bomb. I spent countless hours pushing those little buttons and shuffling 8-track tapes. Awesome.
posted by tadellin at 7:18 AM on August 6, 2007

Robots are fun and all but they are also dangerous:

Old Glory Insurance
posted by jockc at 10:40 AM on August 6, 2007