Tweenbots, the brainchild of ITP graduate student Kacie Kinzer, is probably the cutest thesis project I've ever seen. Or maybe the only cute thesis project I've ever seen. The lil' cardboard robots are completely human-dependant, can only mosey in one direction at a constant (and hilariously slow) speed, and have a final goal in mind (printed on a white flag sticking out of the robots square butt). Kacie let one of them loose in Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park and over the course of forty minutes close to thirty different people intervened, lending a helping hand whenever he got lost, stuck under a bench, or just plain loopy. I particularly love the quote from some guy talking directly to our interpid little Tweenbot: "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.” He then proceeded to turn the little guy back the way he had come. Oh, the amazing ability of humans to anthropomorphize any tiny thing with a big smile and googly eyes.
If the video doesn't make you smile (while showing how great a lot of New Yorkers are) then you yourself might be some sort of robot - though probably not half as cute as a Tweenbot.
Check out the entire site below:
www.tweenbots.com
I think you got it right when you said us humans have a way to anthropormorphize anything with a big smile and googly eyes. I'd probably help the little guy if I saw him, and it's funny the first phrase I think of to describe the robot is "little guy."
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! I've skimmed a few of your posts so far and they make for great reads.
Thanks Adam! I keep hoping I'll run into him when I'm walking around my neighborhood (right by where this little dude usually gets spotted). No luck yet!
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