New Adventures in Human-Robot Interaction
Act 1, in which our hero attempts to traverse the urban landscape
1. EXT DAY URBAN PARK
[A small, cardboard, slightly humanoid ROBOT with bright red wheels and a Sharpied smiley face rolls carelessly through a New York City park. The hustle and bustle of the city does not seem to deter him, while pedestrians yammer on their mobile phones and bundle up from the cold.
ROBOT: motor whirring
[A PASSERBY is inexplicably drawn to the adorable bot, and leans in close to read the sign - a flag, upon a pole - superglued to the bot, that reads "HELP ME! I am trying to get to the southwest corner of Washington Square Park with your help. aim me in the right direction and I'll get there eventually."
PASSERBY: You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road. Here let me help you little robot.
[The PASSERBY lifts the ROBOT from its tiny wheels - still spinning - and sets him down gently in the opposite direction. ROBOT continues on his journey, away from the road, but into what may be certain doom.]
2. EXT DAY URBAN PARK, POTHOLE
[Some time has passed since ROBOT regained his direction, but a pothole threatens to disengage him from his desired path. Motors still whirring, he continues, lemming-like, his death wish turned inward to shake off this mortal coil.]
ROBOT: motor whirring.
[Dissonant string music plays.]
[No! Our hero has fallen prey to the rough concrete jungle, his wheels locked, motor burning, as he falls headfirst into a nasty pothole.
Suddenly, and inexplicably, a human hand reaches from the air, lifting ROBOT from his asphalt trap, and rights him on his wheels, pointed due southwest toward his goal.
Our little hero, you see, relies on the kindness of strangers, challenging the relationship between human and machine, and between human and human. Twenty nine people will help ROBOT on his path across the park, and in just under 3/4 of an hour he will reach his destination, with no mind of his own to guide him. Think of it as crowdsourced driving, albeit at a very slow speed, all motivated by protecting the well-being of an anthropomorphized cardboard machine.
And all is well in Robotland.]
FIN
I've got these giant rolls of stickers, and I'm giving them away (because I love doing that). These Google Lunar X PRIZE designs were printed by the awesome people at StickerGiant, who can make great custom stickers for you too.
Here's how the giveaway works:
- Send a self addressed stamped envelope to:
Google Lunar X PRIZE Stickers
5510 Lincoln Blvd
Suite 100
Playa Vista, CA 90094 - Envelope must be no smaller than 4.5 inches in height and width. This means that a standard #10 envelope is not big enough.
- Proper postage: in the U.S. a $0.44 stamp or "forever" stamp is fine. Outside the U.S. please refer to this chart to find the correct First-class postage rate for your country (under 1 ounce). If you don't have the correct postage, you won't get your stickers.
- You'll receive two (2) of each of our sticker designs, of which there are three (3). That's six (6) total stickers. Doesn't that sentence look very legalese?
- Please please please please please please please please use self-adhesive envelopes if you can.
- I can easily be bribed. If you feel like sending me cool stuff, there might be rewards in store for you ;)
- Envelopes must be postmarked before May 31, 2009. No exceptions.
It looks like many people have put those stickers to good use! Here's a little gallery of some of the photos our fans have sent in of their Google Lunar X PRIZE swag. We'd love to see yours, so just leave a link in the comments, or hit me up on Twitter.
From @drewbenn
From @chris_radcliff
From @quarkspin
From @newguyalex (from RoboDynamics)
From @stephschneider, the mastermind behind incentive 2 innovate
From @qatesiuradewyo:
From @amoroso, a bunch of pictures photographed against "Astronomia popolare, the 1885 Italian edition of Astronomie populaire by Camille Flammarion":
So realistic you'll think it's computer animated. Actually, I'm not entirely sure it's not. Flying penguin blimps? Swarming jellyfish bots? Giant swaying walls that will make you think you've been teleported back to 1967? It's enough to make anyone scratch his head. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
Festo creates a variety of hardware and software solutions, from electromechanical control systems to valves and actuators. Here's a little bit from their website:
Festo is a worldwide leading supplier of pneumatic and electrical automation technology. The globally aligned, independent family enterprise with headquarters in Esslingen, Germany, has evolved into a performance leader within its respective industry over a period of 50 years as a result of innovation and problem solving competence covering all aspects of pneumatics, and thanks to its unique offerings in the field of industrial training and vocational education.
Just watch the video. You'll thank me later.
A perennial favorite of the Friday Funday crowd is this little activity I like to call the Voyager Gold Record Remix (in fact, it was the very first Friday Funday activity we ever did). In 1977, Carl Sagan and some friends designed a gold-plated phonograph record containing a selection of sights and sounds from Earth, to be sent along with the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts as they extended beyond the reaches of our solar system. The project is known as the Voyager Gold Record, and if you dig around you may even find some digital copies of it. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has an excellent display of the record replica as well as the images encoded on it.
The Remix works like this: above you'll see a little widget with a couple of tracks on it that I've chosen as being representative of the sounds of Earth..... and you add to it. Leave your suggestions in the comments and throughout the day I will add them to the widget above. Remember, any tracks purchased through this widget will benefit the education and outreach programs of the Google Lunar X PRIZE!
