Fascinating. I'm a bored college student and I have contemplated building my own humanoid robot quite often. Chances are I would wind up with something more along the lines of Robot Frank: www.robotfrank.com

I think it might take something bordering skill to make a real robot.

Great blog entry, though. It's amazing how close we are coming to achieving some science fiction movie reality (A.I.? I hope not. Gundam? Now that would be sweet.). What is the human fascination with trying to create an entity like itself?

I think there's something totally Frankensteinian about A.I. Robots and A.I. are, at heart, a philosophical pleasure: By looking at the behavior of these kooky, quasi-human things that try to emulate life, we learn a bit more about our own human nature.

Speaking of which, I just bought a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner! I can't wait to see how badly it freaks my cats out when I try using it.

Dude, you have to let me know how that goes. Are you using it on hardwood or rug? I have a cat and I am sure she will pounce but be wary of the bot's lifeless yet whirring heart.

I'm using it on hardwood, though I haven't yet tried it on a maiden voyage yet. I have to actually, ahem, vacuum the place first, using the traditional Hoover vacuum -- because the Roomba is only supposed to be used for regular, light cleaning, not the sort of "deep, hard-core vacuuming" that will be necessary to get my pad clean. Once it's in a reasonable shape, I can run the Roomba a few times a week to maintain things.

I suspect my cats will freak out.

Did you notice how the HOAP-2 Robot has crappy handwriting... Kinda weird and not as non-threatening as you'd like...

Well, that should limit its ability to BECOME SELF-AWARE AND KILL US ALL.

1. If you dare, consider this item in conjunction with the big monkeys-can-move-robot-arms news circulating recently (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20031013-2226-monkey-robotarm.html). Are you thinking what I'm thinking? That's right. ROBOT MONKEY ARMY.

2. I totally almost bought a Roomba last week, which is ridiculous because my apartment is like four square feet. But IT'S A ROBOT.

As to the bad handwriting, I too found that odd. I guess it depends on how the robot "learned" to write that. Was it just programmed the specific movement involved in the signing? Or did it immitate or learn based on a visual cue of the name? Pretty interesting though.

Robin, you *know* you want that robot.

Me, I want robot monkeys to vacuum my apartment. And make me lunch.

Nice site. thx.