Circus, Circus

Some time ago, we hosted a best-birthday-ever for the lovely and awesome Robin Amer.  This featured two, count ‘em two, marching bands:  The Stick and Rag Village Orchestra and the What Cheer? Brigade.  What Cheer? was so new they didn’t have a name yet.  But they rocked the party like no rock band could have.

Don’t believe me?  See for yourself:

After both bands played, they osmotically blended into one big pounding, honking, gyrating band and marched out of Nervebox Studio into surrounding Chinatown, bringing the party to the people.   They marched back in 20 minutes later with more people than they’d left with.

The Blo-bot

What has 6 legs, 4 elbows, no head, and hoots as winsomely as a lovestruck pygmy?

The Blo-bot is my first robot for Ensemble Robot. It’s a tetrahedron of pneumatic cylinders and modified organ pipes that makes music as it slithers and flexes among it’s 64 (2^6) possible shapes.

Here’s a short interview we did for NPR before its first show:

It was featured in shows at MassMoCA, the Wired NextFest, and the Boston Museum of Science.   I’m honestly not certain where it is anymore.  If you see it out there, please send it home.

This is what is looks like in motion!

Falling off the Robot Wagon

I said I wouldn’t do it.  But I couldn’t stay away.  The hours, the expense, the stress of watching level-0 prototypes in high-profile performances, holding my breath waiting for them to embarrassingly malfunction onstage.

But I miss the people.  So I’ve re-joined Ensemble Robot!

This summer I’m building a control system for musical robot for musical robots.  My group at the MIT Media Lab needs it.  By sharing it with Ensemble Robot, I can field-test it for the Media Lab folks.

And I must confess, I miss the bots too.