Robots at the Kennedy Center!

"Robotopia Rising" was a two-week exhibition of Japanese robots at the Kennedy Center in February 2008 that I helped organize as part of the Center's Japan! Culture + Hyperculture show. All the robot starts from Japan were there - Asimo, Wakamaru, the Toyota Partner Robot, Actroid, and others.

The show was immensely popular, drawing huge crowds large enough to pack the Center's vast hall. The Washington Times covered Robotopia Rising in this article.

I was really pleased to have guest speakers there that included android creator Hiroshi Ishiguro, roboticist Tomotaka Takahashi, and Tezuka authority Fred Schodt, author of the excellent Inside the Robot Kingdom.

I was busy demonstrating home robots from Japan like Tomy's i-SOBOT, Sony's Aibo and Kyosho's Manoi remote-controlled humanoid robot kits. Ready to go once you take it out of the box, i-SOBOT proved to be very reliable and its karate moves were popular with the kids.

The punishing schedule of the daily robot demos claimed a few victims. Asimo himself, the most advanced humanoid robot in the world, dazzled everyoen with his dancing and stair-climbing, but had a moment on stage where he "forgot his lines" and had to be assisted!

When one of the Manois broke down, my colleagues from Japan were kind enough to help me try to fix it by cannibalizing parts from the other one. Takahashi-san diagnosed the problem: a severed wire and burned-out servomotors. We restored Manoi to semi-working order so it could at least flex its arm "muscles." Always bring a backup robot when doing a demo.

One group of robots at the show that was totally immune to glitches also had the coolest looks - the Jumbo Machinders. My pal Matt Alt has an incredible collection of these large polyethylene toy robots from the 1970s and 1980s and they blew minds at the Center. Thanks, Matt!