Cut and droid

>> The Montreal Science Centre’s Robofolies
is all robots, all the time

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Regular Mirror readers will have noticed by now that this paper—or, in any case, this particular writer—has a possibly unhealthy fixation on robots. Maybe it’s the deeply ingrained, revisionist mythology of the Star Wars generation. Maybe it’s gender psychology—frustration over the male inability to “make” live human babies, sublimated by these ugly little totems of steel and plastic. Whatever the case may be, anything that beeps and buzzes when it moves, and talks like an omniscient Speak & Spell, is automatically wicked boss cool.

Opportunities to experience the miracle of robotics first-hand have been, to date, aggravatingly limited. Toy robots are just that—toys—and cannot be trusted to carry out instructions like “Fetch smokes from dep” or “Strangle neighbour’s noisy chihuahua.” In the local music scene, robots have a fresh new cachet, but other than Maxime de la Rochefoucauld’s Automates Ki, which look more like kindergarten craft disasters, and that Assemblé thing at Elektra last year, real robot action has been scarce. As enchanting and delightful as recent coverboy Jon Asencio looks in his homemade robot costumes, he’s really just a flesh ’n’ blood guy in a cardboard box, covered in tinfoil. In all the decades since the cinematic masterpiece Robot Monster gave us the gorilla suit/diving helmet paradigm, have we really come all that far?

Just as I was ready to give no more thought to the ’bots, redirecting my attention to orcs, goblins and wizards, along comes the Montreal Science Centre’s second annual Robofolies. Running from March 2 to 10, this event offers demonstrations, workshops, panels, performances and a creepy mime called Robot Man, all with the intention of letting kids know that robots are fun, cool and very useful.
Right, like they didn’t know that.

Your future in robotics

As per the Centre’s mandate, the focus is on hands-on learning experiences, enlightening rugrats as to the very real and practical presence of robots in the lives we lead today. Hopefully, such activities will spark their youthful imaginations, starting them on the road to productive and satisfying careers in robotics. In fact, the Robotics Rally, on Friday, March 8 at 1 p.m., offers a chance to meet pros in the field and get the skinny on what the field has to offer.

Kids, if you’re reading this, robots can save lives, in hospitals and at disaster sites. Robots can do jobs nobody wants to do, like battling forest fires or sponge-bathing Marlon Brando. Robots can make our lives easier, by lifting heavy objects or grabbing a six-pack with those aforementioned smokes. Best of all, robots can smash Daddy’s brain if he tries to ground you again. Imagine the possibilities!

Workshops at Robofolies include one on Robot Tricks, where kids will learn to actually program simple robots to do uncomplicated activities. The Space Robots workshop shows youngsters how to operate robots by remote control, just like astronauts do. The Lego-Bots workshop lets kids build R/C Lego cars, race them, and run crying to Mommy when they lose. The final workshop is called Dress Up Like a Robot, and unless Jon Asencio shows up and hogs all the tinfoil, it’s a chance to make supercool robot costumes from scratch.

That’s a definite nano

There are a couple of fairly serious presentations to check out at Robofolies this year as well. One is the daily demos of the Micro VGTV, a small, flat, funny-lookin’ contraption that’s just come back from the site of the WTC disaster. There, the plucky little fellow was able to crawl into corners that big, clumsy people couldn’t fit in, to search for things like survivors, evidence and America’s lost sense of innocence.

The other presentation is on Saturday, March 9, at 3:30 p.m. It’s hosted by École Polytechnique’s Sylvain Martel (who’s all la-di-da now that he’s in with those cool kids at MIT), and it concerns nanobots. Fans of the cyberpunk genre of science fiction know from these little dickenses, microbe-sized drones that can swim through the human bloodstream unobtrusively. Fact is, Martel’s nanobots aren’t that microscopic yet, but at 32 millimetres, smaller than a Tamagochi, they can work at an atomic level. It won’t be that long before nanobots can enter the human body—comfortably—and backstroke up to the brain, making people’s heads explode like that scene in fucking Scanners, man. Once the novelty of that wears off, maybe they can cure cancer and stuff.

Also on the nanobot tip is the “immersion movie game” Vital Space, an interactive, science-factual deal which allows players to control nanobots inside the body of an astronaut on a mission to Mars in 2020. Apparently, this virtual astronaut has a deadly virus lurking inside her, so the aim of the game is to hunt it down, kill it and save her life. Finally, a robot on the bill that actually kills stuff!

Hopefully Spinos, Motus and Hydraumas III aren’t programmed to kill, kill, kill, because they’ll be left to their own devices in the Science Centre’s Passerelle, buzzing around doing what they do. Did I mention Rikilyinx, the walking robot, appearing on Sunday, March 10? Apparently, he walks! Imagine! Also on March 10, at 1 p.m., are the Canada First Robotic Games, a robo-racecourse for robo-enthusiasts (kinda like a kinder, gentler Robot Wars).
Finally, you gotta see this Aïbo thing (daily demos at 2 p.m.). It’s that lil’ Japanese robo-pup who does everything a real puppy does. No, really… everything. If you get one, have a few copies of Technology Today handy for housebreaking purposes. Now, I wonder how the neighbour’s chihuahua would hold up in the pit against this one… :

The Robofolies are at the Montreal Science Centre (on King Edward Pier in the Old Port) from Saturday, March 2 to Sunday, March 10, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, $10.95–$13.95 (free for kids three and under). For more info visit www.montrealsciencecentre.com