Friday Mashup – Robots

Friday Mashup – Robots

by | Apr 22, 2014 | Friday Mashup | 0 comments

Hello Everyone!

First of all, apologies for posting the Friday Mashup on Tuesday. I have long list of excuses for this, which includes 1) visiting family, 2) a Bobbledy library event on Saturday for which we had to bind a bunch of books, 3) Easter, 4) sore big toe on my right foot.

We hope that you are among those cheerful sorts who subscribe to the “better late than never camp,” but if you choose to storm off in a huff, we will completely understand.

At the end of a long week of thinking about robots, I’m ready to share my favorite stories and pictures and other fun stuff you sent our way.

We asked you this week to think about what kind of robot you would invent and what you would invent it to do.  Here are some of your responses:

Alden says:

I would invent a Fixing Robot and it would fix everything. It would fix a broken toy. And it would also even fix papers that were teared apart and make them brand new. It could even fix a bone in one little second. And it could fix a ring, and it could even fix a toy’s head. It could even fix a house, super fast.

It would look like me, Alden. But it would be made out of metal.

There is much here to contemplate, Alden. What you seem to be saying is that this robot fixes everything. I am guessing that your interest in this robot stems from your having two little brothers who like to break toys, tear pages, damage rings, and pose consistent threats to various bones.

As your father, I’m tempted to steal the blueprints while you sleep and use them to build a vast army of fixing robots that I would unleash upon the living room.

Kato says:

It would be a plane-building robot. It would be named R2D2. It would be orange and made out of metal. It would have wheels and legs. It would also fix bones.

Kato: Is there a rash of broken bones that I’m not aware of? Or are you just shrewdly imagining that a robot with orthopedic powers would fetch a pretty penny on the open market? What do you say we go halvsies on whatever profits you realize from this venture? But first, let’s have a little chat about copyright violation. May I suggest that we call your robot something else, such as Edgar?

Anna says:

Mine is going to be orange and black and blue and red and green. I don’t want it to do anything. I just want it to move around and be lots of different colors.

Anna: I applaud the elegant simplicity of your vision. Robots don’t need to shot lasers or fly through the air or grab things with metal claws. They can just be.

But have you asked yourself what you’re going to do if you break one of your bones? Perhaps you want to reconsider this robot plan of yours, after all.

We asked for robot drawings and here’s what you sent:

Here is Harvey’s robot picture and story.

Here’s the story again, in case you want to have another read:

I have a robot. It can change into many things. His name is Bob. It can change into an alien, a bear, a dinosaur, a saver, a fighter, and a defeater. I made it myself. You can design a robot on a computer. When it sees what parts you need, you can get it online. Then you go to a man who is really good at metal and he will give you the parts. First you start with a circuit. Then a head, body, arms, and legs. That’s how to build a robot.

I love your story, Harvey. Not only is Bob an excellent robot (as evidence I cite his ability to change into shapes as disparate as a dinosaur and a bear) but he is a homemade robot, which makes him all the more wonderful. Thanks so much for giving us some pointers on how to make a robot. I have a computer. And I know a man who is really good at metal. His name is Malcolm. Does this mean I’m likely to succeed? Or is there more to it than that? I do not, for example, have a circuit. Might you be willing to loan me one of yours?

Here is Harry’s robot drawing:

Excellent robot, Harry!  Is this, as it seems, a Harry Potter robot? And is the Harry Potter Robot standing next to an enormous, rainbow-colored castle? And is this, in fact, a scene from one of the Harry Potter books (I must admit that I’ve only read the first one) or is it a scene from the inside of your mind? If the latter, it seems as if the inside of your mind is a place I’d like to visit sometime.

Here is Simon’s story about a dinosaur robot:

This dinosaur robot has a long neck. It also has a long tail. Real dinosaurs lived in the time when there were no robot dinosaurs. This robot is like the real dinosaur alamosaurus. Is it the same size as the real dinosaur was? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.

Simon, I applaud you for covering your bases. Either the robot dinosaur was or was not the same size as the actual alamosaurus. I’m guessing that no one will be able to present evidence to the contrary. I only wish that I had lived in the time of real-live dinosaurs so that I could have seen a real live alamosaurus doing the kinds of things that a real live alamosaurus would do. But, come to think of it, there were no fresh flour tortillas available in those days, so never mind.

Here is Simon’s drawing of the dinosaur robot:

Simon's Dino-bot

Simon, I cannot decide which I admire more: your writing or drawing skills. I admire the carefully articulated moving pieces in the image above. It is as if I am looking at a photograph of a real-live robotic alamosaurus. And looking at said image, I am altogether uncertain whether it is the same size as a real-live alamosaurus or not.

And now, as a final treat, is an amazing video of Simon and his dad playing with toothbrush robots they built.

Are you gasping with surprise and doing double-takes of amazement and excitement? I know I am. It is making it hard to type. It is making it hard to type. (ahem. That was my double-take.)

For his great drawing, fun story, and incredible video, it seems clear to me the this week’s winner, our resident expert on robots, is none other than Simon!

Please step forward and take your bow, sir (and you can download your trophy HERE).

Thanks, everyone, who shared their robots with us this week. We sure loved seeing what the insides of your heads look like.

And sorry again for being so late in posting. I wish I could say that it won’t happen again, but I haven’t yet invented a robot to help keep me organized. If anyone has invented such a robot, please let me know.

Drawing Prompt – Robots!

Drawing Prompt – Robots!

by | Apr 15, 2014 | Drawing Prompts | 5 comments

Helllo all!

My goodness, how quickly Tuesday rolls around again! After going to Robotfest, I was super excited to do my robot drawing this week. It turns out I’ve actually drawn a few robots in my time. There was this one:

Cat Robot

which was one of the very first drawings I auctioned on ebay.

Of course, there is >My Henderson Robot, which was the very first kids’ book that Matthew and I ever made together, way back in 2003 when I had the assignment to make a children’s book in art school.

My Henderson Robot

You can buy a copy of it HERE. I’m quite fond of that book. And of the Henderson Robot.

And then we wrote another whole DIFFERENT book about robots, called Bobby and the Robots. Those of you who have been part of the Bobbledy Club since the beginning will recognize it as the second book we ever mailed out.

Bobby and the Robots

You might recall there are even instructions on how to make your own robot in the back of the book:

Make Your Own Robot

You might recall this because a bunch of you even sent us pictures of the robots you made!

Homemade robots!

If you haven’t seen the book or made your own robot, you can buy Bobby and the Robots HERE. (Or you can just make a robot and send us pictures of it, which will make us just as happy).

We even had one subscriber, Diego Mongue, go off and start his own awesome robot comic, called Awesome Robot Comix! Available HERE on Amazon!

So, it seems like we’ve had robots on the brain for a while.

I’ve always liked the idea of a robot being made out of something that’s already been sitting around, like a refrigerator or a hot water heater or, say, an OVEN. And so I decided to draw my robot as an oven. And I wondered what my Ovenbot might do – would he shoot lasers? Would he destroy cities? Would he stack pancakes? Would he build cars? And then I realized that all an Ovenbot wants is something to bake!

And so, instead of destroying cities, my Ovenbot is chasing down his next meal. Chicken.

Almost as grim as destroying cities or shooting lasers.

If you’d like to print this out and color it in, here’s a coloring page for you (PDF download HERE):

Ovenbot Coloring Page

So now’s the time to get to it! Let’s see you draw (or make!) you own robot! Tell us what it’s made out of and what it does – submit it in the comments here, or on instagram using #bobbledyrobots. Can’t wait to see what kind of crazy robots you come up with!

And, if you’re interested in buying the original artwork for my Ovenbot, you can head on over to eBay and put your bid in HERE.

Theme of the Week: Robots!

Theme of the Week: Robots!

by | Apr 12, 2014 | Theme of the Week | 3 comments

Hello Everyone!

Well, I’m very excited to tell you about this week’s Theme of the Week because we are spending the day today at ROBOTFEST!

Which is to say: this week’s Theme of the Week is: ROBOTS! #bobbledyrobots

Yes, Robotfest is an annual event over at the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum, Maryland. It’s about an hour and a half away from our barn in Chestertown, but we had so much fun there last year, we figure it’s worth the trip.

I know, I know, we probably should have told you about it before, so that those of you who are in the area could plan for a visit. But we didn’t. Sorry about that. If you have the chance and a free schedule today, though, head on over. Wear your sunglasses for $1 off admission (though elementary kids and younger get in for free anyway)!

Anyway. Here’s the deal: robots are cool. Most of the time that we think of robots, we think of robots like this:

(We met R2 at Robotfest last year, before August knew that pushing buttons on a droid is not a good idea).

Or, maybe like this:

(We didn’t meet any Transformers, but we DID make some kind-of-transformers out of cardboard with interchangeable modular parts):

But as much as we’d like our robots to look and behave kind of like people, most of the robots in the world are actually used to do things that we don’t like to do or that we can’t do as efficiently as machines. (The word “robot” actually comes from the Czech word “robotnik” which means “slave” from the word “robotiti” to work, or to drudge, which basically means to do really boring awful things that are no fun at all). Like, take little crackers (or something?) from one conveyor belt and put them neatly onto another:

That would be a really hard job for a human to do without getting super tired (or super bored, or super irritated).

Robots are also used to do more complicated things, like stack pancakes:

You see, if you had a PERSON like ME doing that job, not only would your pancakes have fingerprints all over them, but they would probably have a bunch of bites taken out of them, because I LOVE pancakes! In fact, there’s a funny old TV episode where Lucy and Ethel go to work in a chocolate factory and have to wrap candies (this was back in the old days before they had robots to do this kind of work):

So – it’s a good thing we’ve figured out a way to get robots to help us out. But aside from doing the boring and repetitive jobs, engineers are also developing robots that can do rescue missions that would be too dangerous for humans (like saving people from fires or floods). So robots are definitely going to be around more and more in the future.

So for this week, we’d like you to think about what kind of robot YOU would invent, and what would you invent it to do? Post your ideas and pictures here in the comments or on Instagram using #bobbledyrobots. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

And – we’ll give you the run-down on this year’s RobotFest later in the week. Happy Robot Week!!!