“What Does Your Dream Robot Look Like?”

The host at Sunday’s Robot Film Festival (Andrew McGregor) interacted with the audience at the beginning, and somehow I was left asked to describe, “What does your dream robot look like?”.

I evaded the question at first – someone else from the audience had just said something about how the biggest thing that he had learned from working from robots, was “it isn’t just about the robot, it is about *making* the robot”.  I completely agree with that point, and basically rehashed it for Andrew.

Andrew, the host, pushed.  In fact, he just looked at me and asked the exact same thing again, “What does your dream robot look like?”.  So, I paused and said something like.  “well.. just thinking out loud… for some reason I have an affinity for stuff like tin cans.  And for soft materials like wood.  And for found objects.  So, I guess my dream robot would have some of those components, and I’d probably want to consider him a companion.”  And Andrew listened, and moved on to the next person.

So, I sat there thinking, “Why did I say that?”.  And I kind of realized that most of my impulses for DIY and robots and building stuff comes from a childhood spend at my dad’s knees, helping him in the woodshop, helping him tune his carburator in his Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors, and going to the town dump – just to walk around and look for stuff that we could take home and fix.  My affinity for found objects, wood, tin and (also) companionship in making and fixing stuff, comes from that kind of time spent with him.

And so does Brooklyn Robot Foundry.  We aren’t legally allowed to walk around the dump these days with our kids.  We rarely have room in our basements for tablesaws and drill presses.  And our cars don’t have carburators anymore.

But… still… what a great time to be a maker.  And we looking to make Brooklyn Robot Foundry a place where kids and families can build stuff together.

Thanks to Andrew McGregor, for asking a good question.  And asking it again.