I’m not sure that either the internet (or robots) actually existed 10 years ago, but somehow, that’s when GoRobotics.net got their start. 10 years is a looooong time for a blog to be around (I got pretty excited when BotJunkie turned 1, myself), and to celebrate they’re giving away a bunch of cool stuff.

Congrats to William Cox et al!

Also, GoRobotics is starting a new website called RobotBox, which a cross between a community website and portfolio for robot builders. It looks pretty cool, take the tour here.

[ GoRobotics ]
[ RobotBox ]

Happily, there has been a ton of robot news as of late. Unhappily, I’m just one poor guy who isn’t a blogging robot (oh, if only!) and it’s not physically possible for me to keep up with it all. Luckily for me, I’m about to get some help, since Greg Intermaggio is going to be writing some BotJunkie posts on what I hope is going to be a semi-regular basis. Be nice. -Ed.

Hey there!

My name is Greg Intermaggio. I’m a dedicated robotics geek, and I’ve recently taken to blogging. My experience includes a bit of everything, from building ComBots to building robotic flamethrowers to toast the perfect marshmallow. I’ll be contributing articles here and there as I find cool stuff to write about, so sit back, relax and stay tuned!

-Greg

In a world where robots and humans struggle together in the fight against boredom…

Only one event ends up with the robots dancing “The Human” while the meat puppets (you) end up singing the praises of RoboBartenders.

BarBot is a celebration of cocktail culture and man-machine interface. Get a drink from an actual robot. Chat up a snarky electronic bartender. Listen to some graceful tunes being played by robotic music makers. And, after downing your sixth martini, you can finally admit that it’s the geeks who shall inherit the earth.

These robots don’t clean the carpets. What they will do is much, much better. They make you a drink! Let your roommate do the vacuuming. These bots have got better programming on their mind.

Wed/Thur Feb 17-18, 2010 – 9pm-2am
21+ with photo ID $10 advance / $15 at door

And here’s a special deal for BotJunkie readers: if you donate $1.50 to RoboGames at the door and say you’re a BotJunkie reader, it’s good for 10% off the cover. How ’bout that!

Buy tickets here.

[ BarBot ]

Just a brief note to let you know that our contact form has (hopefully) been fixed, and some issues with old posts have also (hopefully) been fixed. Let me know in the comments if you notice anything wonky, and you can always email me personally (evan (at) botjunkie (dot) com) with tips and stuff.

Thanks!

Now, I’m totally in favor of a National Robotics Week… I just wish we’d have a National Robotics Year instead. And that it would be an annual event. But until that happens, April 10-18 of this year has been designated National Robotics Week (and a day?) by iRobot along with an “alliance of top industry, academic and non-profit organizations” that includes AUVSI, FIRST, CMU, MIT, Stanford, and a bunch of other people.

There are a number of events scheduled, from competitions to parties to factory tours all around the US. It’s a wonderful idea, having a National Robotics Week full of exciting robot-y things… Just do the industry a favor: if you decide to go to one of these events because you think robots are awesome, bring along someone you know who doesn’t think that robots are awesome, and show them what they’re missing out on. Robotics has an incredible core of devoted people, but part of our job has to be showing everybody else why, and how, robots are going to be an important part of our lives in the future. Not the forever from now flying car jetpack future, but the next few years future. It’s not something anyone needs to be scared of or intimidated by as long as they understand, and hopefully National Robotics Week can take a crack at making that happen.

[ Press Release ]
[ National Robotics Week ]

This week is the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and BotJunkie is here, bringing all the best robot bits of it to you live and in perso. There’s going to be more robots here than ever, and since it’s the Consumer Electronics Show, these are all robots that you either can buy right now, or will be able to buy soon, unlike (sadly) much of the cool stuff we write about here on BotJunkie.

I’m also covering CES for our sister site OhGizmo, so if you’re interested in gadgety stuff, be sure to check out our coverage by clicking here.

CES runs through this Sunday, after which we’ll be back to our regular schedule of posts.

You’re probably too busy drinking champagne and kissing someone you just met to be checking BotJunkie right now, and so am I, but I’ve queued up this post for the first minute of 2010 anyway. I just wanted to take a minute and say, thanks for reading. And more importantly, thanks for being interested in robots. It’s your enthusiasm (yes, you!) that makes BotJunkie worth it for me. I don’t write about robots to make money (although eventually it might be nice if that were to happen), I write about robots because I love robots, and I love sharing new robot stuff with you guys. Keep commenting, keep sending emails, and I’ll do my level best to keep delivering awesome robot news.

Speaking of awesome robot news, an extra super special thanks to sites like Robots.net, Robots-Dreams, Suicide Bots, Robot Watch, IEEE Automaton, Plastic Pals, Robot Stock News, Botropolis, Robot Living, GetRobo, and many others, including those sites that just have robot content every once in a while. I work hard to make BotJunkie the absolute best robot blog EVAR, and sites like these keep me inspired and help to come up with some great content. If you only read one robot blog, I hope it’s BotJunkie, but if you want to read ten or eleven, well, there you go.

So what’s in store for 2010? Well, we’re kicking off the year with a trip to the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. For sure we’ll be hooking up with Keepon again and getting the latest updates on when you’ll be able to buy your own little squishy dancing robot, taking an in-person look at the new Neato XV-11 robot vacuum, and reportedly, meeting “the world’s first sex robot.” But as always, it’s the stuff that we don’t know about in advance that’s going to be the most exciting, so stay tuned… We’ll be there from Tuesday January 5th though Sunday January 10th with coverage as non-stop as I am physically capable of.

Also, I’m hoping to run a few more contests in the near future, starting with the 2009 Uncanny Valley Award for creepiest robot of the past year. Look for that after CES, with prizes that will probably include whatever swag we pick up at the show, among other things.

So again, thanks for reading, and thanks for being as fascinated with robots as I am. Happy 2010!

I’m going to be spending this week on vacation, somewhere around here. Part of the reason that it is a vacation is that I won’t have internet access to speak of. GAAAAHHHH. But fear not, that’s my problem (GAAAAHHHH), not yours… I’ve queued up some posts for every day of the week, and the up-to-date robot news will be taken care of by the talented and famous Andrew Liszewski, as well as the famous and talented Chris Scott Barr, both from OhGizmo.com. Enjoy the change of pace, and I’ll see y’all next week.

Ooooh baby, can you feel that robot love? And better yet, that smashing sparking crushing robot destruction and death? Not only has RoboGames 2010 been scheduled for April 23-25th (a few months earlier than this year), but the ComBots Cup is back! We covered ComBots in May of 2008… Held at Maker Faire, it’s where Pleo got, uh, introduced to Vicious Verdict. The problem with having the ComBots Cup in May and RoboGames in June is that it didn’t allow for much time for both people and robots to recover from two days of combat, and as we’ve seen, things can get pretty brutal, so last year, the two events were sort of folded into RoboGames. Or ComBots went on hiatus. I’m not sure which. But who cares, it’s back now, and that means TWICE THE CARNAGE!

The ComBots Cup is scheduled for December 19-20, and both events have moved to the San Mateo County Fairgrounds just south of San Francisco. Lots of details will be forthcoming, and we’ll bring ‘em to you, but make sure and block out these dates on your calendar now. Plus the normal two or three days afterwords for detox.

[ RoboGames ] and [ ComBots Cup ] VIA [ Suicide Bots ]

See that sidebar on the right? If you haven’t noticed yet, BotJunkie has a Twitter feed that shows up over there, right below the list of post categories. The feed contains links to our posted articles for Twitter people who are too lazy to check the site, but we also post links to a bunch of other robot stuff that for one reason or another isn’t quite right for a full BotJunkie post. Here’s a sample of what we’ve Twittered over the last week:

Dean Kamen interviewed on Robots Podcast http://8ajaa.tk

Idea contest for Affordable Robots http://908y6.tk

MAKE weekend project: build a Blubberbot http://v3dwr.tk

Alan Turing gets official apology, robots everywhere say “about time” and “we’re human” http://8aqdi.tk

So, once you’ve made it through our regular posts, don’t forget to give the Twitter feed a glance for more robot-y goodness.

[ BotJunkie on Twitter ]