Notable robots from science-fiction movies and TV shows

Of the 30 robots so far inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame, 14 are fictional robots from science-fiction movies and TV shows.
They include R2-D2 and C-3PO from “Star Wars”; HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey”; Astro Boy from the Japanese series; Robbie the Robot from “Forbidden Planet”; David from “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”; Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”; Maria from “Metropolis”; Lt. Comdr. Data from “Star Trek”; Dewey, Huey and Louie from “Silent Running”; Terminator T-800 from “The Terminator”; and Wall-E from the Disney Pixar movie of the same name.
But there are many more notable robots who deserve to be inducted. I agree with IT World writer Christopher Nerney who argued that Robot B-9 from the “Lost in Space” TV series needs to be included pronto.

Here are some lists of famous fictional robots:

21 Hotshot Movie Robots (Entertainment Weekly; Feb. 13, 2014)

Guillermo del Toro: My 10 Favorite Robots (Entertainment Weekly; July 29, 2013)

Top 10 Favorite Film Robots (Geek Tyrant; June 2014)

Photo: “Synthespians. Robots. Cyborgs. Holograms. Computers” by artist Scott Park. You can buy a print of this artwork at Society6.com.

Robot Hall of Fame hits another rough patch

Every two years, the Robot Hall of Fame chooses a new class of inductees. And as with recent induction years, the virtual hall of fame is having trouble getting its act together.
I recently corresponded via email with Shirley Saldamarco, a faculty member with the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center, who is involved with the Robot Hall of Fame.
“To paraphrase our past president, here we go again,” she said on Aug. 22. “Although the RHoF is still around, we are struggling.”
This year’s class of inductees is in a “holding pattern” because of finances and a leadership change at the CMU School of Computer Science, which created and oversees the Robot Hall of Fame, she said.
“I feel cautiously optimistic that we will continue,” Saldamarco said.
It’s a shame that the Robot Hall of Fame doesn’t get more corporate sponsorship. It’s a great way to honor robots from science and industry that have helped mankind and fictional robots that have inspired future engineers and scientists.

Photos: 
iRobot’s PackBot military robot, inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2012 (top); 
Robby the Robot from the 1956 sci-fi movie “Forbidden Planet” and as seen at the Roboworld exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, inducted in 2004. 

Resources: 

Robot Hall of Fame page on Wikipedia.

Robot Hall of Fame page at Carnegie Mellon University.

Summer road trip, part one: Halls of fame

Readers of Tech-media-tainment know that I like halls of fame – those shrines to the greats of every profession and talent.
At the start of my family’s recent seven-day road trip vacation, we visited two halls of fame: the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

The Robot Hall of Fame

I love robots – robots for science, exploration, industrial use and fictional robots from movies and TV shows. I’ve followed the Robot Hall of Fame for many years. I attended the 2008 induction ceremony and voted online for the 2012 class of inductees, the first time voting was open to the general public.
The Robot Hall of Fame has a physical presence in the Roboworld exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. While the Carnegie Science Center is a great attraction for families, the Robot Hall of Fame section needs a major upgrade.
For starters, not all of the enshrined robots are represented in the exhibit. Because it’s a children’s museum, all are fictional robots from movies and TV shows.
The display features reproductions of R2-D2 and C-3PO from “Star Wars,” HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Dewey from “Silent Running,” Robby the Robot from “Forbidden Planet,” Maria from “Metropolis” and Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” That’s just seven of the 30 robots that have been inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame to date. The pop culture robot display also includes Robot B-9 from “Lost in Space,” which has yet to be inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame.
The exhibit is simply a taste of the Robot Hall of Fame, not a complete experience. The individual robots on display are mostly static with blinking or flashing lights to make them seem more active. Each includes a descriptive plaque. HAL 9000 has a small video display with the villainous computer’s dialog from the movie.
But a true Robot Hall of Fame deserves a more fitting presentation. Funding has been a problem, so a larger, standalone shrine is unlikely. A small theater playing a looping video showcasing all the robots in the hall of fame would be nice.
Ideally each robot would get a display with animatronics, interactivity and multimedia.
The rest of the Roboworld exhibit is a lot more compelling. There’s a basketball-throwing robot, a robot that plays air hockey with you and a humanoid robot that acts out scenes from movies.
Maybe one day the Robot Hall of Fame will get its own museum that will feature all the real and fictional robots inducted. It would include such real robots as the Unimate industrial robot, the da Vinci Surgical System, Mars exploration robots Spirit and Opportunity, and the iRobot military robot PackBot.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been a bucket-list destination of mine for some time. I’m glad to say that it’s worth the trip to Cleveland.
The hall of fame is packed with memorabilia, costumes, instruments and other possessions of some of pop music’s greats.
The downstairs level is the largest and best section of the museum. It features a dizzying array of unique items from hall of fame inductees and current stars who aren’t yet eligible for inclusion.
On our visit, the museum had just opened a fashion exhibit devoted to Beyonce, which was terrific.
I enjoyed seeing the tour clothing, musical instruments, handwritten song lyrics, set lists and other items from the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, U2, Billy Joel, Madonna, ZZ Top, Michael Jackson and many more.
Much of it was a trip down memory lane for me, having grown up listening to and watching these artists. I got a kick out of the Dick Clark tribute film and seeing all the then-young artists appear on “American Bandstand.”
I liked some of the unique items on display, such as Janis Joplin’s psychedelic-painted 1965 Porsche.
My kids appreciated seeing items on display from younger artists, including Katy Perry, Kesha, Rihanna and Lady Gaga. Perry’s peppermint candy-themed dress was a big hit with my 8-year-old daughter.
The other levels of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are a bit of a disappointment in terms of content and layout, largely because of the odd shape of the I.M. Pei-designed building.
One thing that is sorely missing from the museum is a prominent exhibit that spells out who all the inductees to the rock hall actually are.

Photos:
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exterior;
R2-D2 at Robot Hall of Fame;
Dewey at Robot Hall of Fame;
Beyonce costume exhibit at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame;
Beatles collection at rock hall;
Janis Joplin’s psychedelic Porsche at rock hall;
Katy Perry’s peppermint tour costume at rock hall.

Robot Hall of Fame welcomes two iRobot machines and WALL-E

The Robot Hall of Fame this week enshrined two machines built by iRobot – its Roomba vacuum cleaner and PackBot military workhorse. It also added fictional trash-collecting robot WALL-E from the Disney-Pixar movie of the same name.
The Pittsburgh-based hall, which honors real robots from science and industry and fictional robots that serve as inspiration, held a ceremony Tuesday to induct two sets of robots.
The 2012 class of inductees includes Aldebaran Robotics’ NAO humanoid, iRobot’s PackBot bomb disposal robot, Boston Dynamics’ four-legged BigDog and WALL-E. I accurately predicted three of the four selections this year.
The ceremony, held at Carnegie Science Center, also honored the 2010 class, which was never formally enshrined. That class includes NASA Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity; iRobot’s Roomba; the da Vinci Surgical System; the characters Huey, Dewey and Louie from the 1971 film “Silent Running”; and T-800, the character played by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator” film series.

Photos: iRobot’s PackBot at work (top) and Robot Hall of Fame poster. 

Robot Hall of Fame 2012 endorsements

If the news media can endorse political candidates, I figure I should be able to endorse my picks for induction into the Robot Hall of Fame.
This year, the public is able to vote from a list of nominees in four categories.
Here are my selections for the 2012 inductees to the robot shrine.
In the industrial and service category, I picked iRobot’s PackBot military robot. The other nominees are cool, but the PackBot has saved the lives of countless U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The PackBot has been a workhorse, disposing of road-side bombs and conducting reconnaissance missions. It has paved the way for future, more capable robots to be used by soldiers and police forces.
In the education and consumer category, I chose VEX Robotics Design System, a kit for designing and building robots for schools and competitions, including the FIRST Tech Challenge. It’s had a big impact on the lives of many future engineers.
In the research category, I selected BigDog, a four-legged robot the size of a small mule developed by Boston Dynamics for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Anybody who’s seen the YouTube videos of this robot in action is sure to be amazed.
And finally in the entertainment category, I picked WALL-E from the 2008 Disney Pixar movie about a lovable waste-collecting robot who finds love. WALL-E is going to have some stiff competition from Rosie the robot maid from the “The Jetsons” however.

Photo: iRobot’s PackBot in action.

Glad the Robot Hall of Fame is back in business

I love robots and halls of fame. So I was pleased to find out earlier this month that the Robot Hall of Fame has resumed operations after a two-year hiatus.
Created by Carnegie Mellon University in 2003, the Robot Hall of Fame honors real-world robots from science and industry and fictional robots from pop culture. The hall has a physical presence at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.
The hall will induct two sets of robots at a ceremony in October.
The first group was selected in 2009, but was never inducted. That group includes NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, iRobot’s Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, and Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci Surgical System. It also includes the T-800 Terminator from the sci-fi movie “The Terminator” (1984) and the charming maintenance robots Huey, Dewey and Louie from the sci-fi film “Silent Running” (1971).
The second set of robots to be inducted will be chosen in an online vote later this summer from nominees selected by an expert panel of jurors. They will be announced at the Oct. 23 ceremony at the Carnegie Science Center.
While I’m a fan of all robots, I’m particularly interested in space exploration robots and robots from movies and TV shows.
When I was a kid I closely followed the Mars Viking lander missions and loved the character “Robot” on the TV show “Lost in Space.” Neither of those robots has been selected yet. But now that the Robot Hall of Fame is back in business, it’s possible.

Related story:
Roomba, Terminator Finally To Enter Robot Shrine (Investors.com; July 13, 2012)

Photo: Robot B-9 from “Lost in Space” (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Web vandals put ‘Futurama’ character Bender in Robot Hall of Fame

Fans of the sci-fi cartoon comedy “Futurama” vandalized the Wikipedia page for the Robot Hall of Fame recently to add the show’s antihero robot Bender to the list of inductees.
While Bender would make a fine addition to the fictional robots portion of the Robot Hall of Fame, he was never chosen for the honor. The error also was added to Bender’s Wikipedia page. I have since gone in and edited out those errors and added more citations for the actual winners.
If Bender is ever going to have a chance to make it into the Robot Hall of Fame, the organization behind the hall is going to need to find the financing necessary to resume operations. It suspended operations in 2010 for lack of funds.
Bender is one of many real and fictional robots who have been nominated by the public for inclusion in the hall.
The original error about Bender was added to the Robot Hall of Fame Wikipedia page on Dec. 5, 2011. It was added to the Bender Wikipedia page on Feb. 8, 2012.
It’s not the first time pranksters have had fun with Bender online. In 2010, a team of hackers from the University of Michigan got Bender elected as president of the Washington, D.C., school board by tapping into the city’s flawed electronic voting system, PCWorld reported.

Photo: Bender the robot from “Futurama” (20th Century Fox).

Arnold Schwarzenegger could repair his image by helping the Robot Hall of Fame

Former California governor and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger took a big hit to his reputation when it was revealed in May that he fathered a son with his housekeeper while married to Maria Shriver. Because of the media backlash, Schwarzenegger had to put his movie career comeback on hold. He’s kept a low profile since then.
But Schwarzenegger can still refurbish his reputation. As much as the media relishes tearing down a top celebrity, they also love a comeback story.
Schwarzenegger’s official website has a banner than reads “Stay tuned for my next move.” (See above photo.)
A good move for him would be to do something that reminds people about his glorious past while looking to the future.
My suggestion: Make a donation to Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh so it can induct a new class of robots, including the T-800 Terminator, played by Schwarzenegger in the “Terminator” movie series.
Last November, I wrote about how funding woes had temporarily halted activity at the Robot Hall of Fame. (See article “Funding Woes Short-Circuit Robot Hall Of Fame Activity” at Investors.com.)
The hall was created by the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science in 2003 to honor both real-world robots and fictional robots that have inspired scientists. It was supposed to hold its biennial induction ceremony for a new class of robots last fall, but it was indefinitely postponed.
The organization only needs about $50,000 to $75,000 to hold the induction ceremony. Schwarzenegger and his friend James Cameron, the creator of the “Terminator” franchise, should pitch in to fund the ceremony. They also should attend the event to celebrate their creation.
The other inductees are the DaVinci Medical Robot System from Intuitive Surgical; NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity; the Roomba vacuum cleaner from iRobot; and Huey, Dewey and Louie from the 1971 science-fiction film “Silent Running.”
Inductees are enshrined at a permanent robotics exhibit called Roboworld at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.
The induction ceremony would be a perfect fit for Cameron and Schwarzenegger. Both men are passionate about science and technology as well as education. This is a great way for them to show it.
President Barack Obama just visited the robotics school at Carnegie Mellon University last week.
Will Schwarzenegger follow suit?
I hope so.

Halls of fame update: Tech, toys, robots, rock and roll, and hip hop music

Lots of goings-on with halls of fame lately.
As a fan of the concept, I track news associated with halls of fame, especially those involving entertainment and technology.
Here’s a summary of the activity:

IT Hall of Fame

Information technology trade group CompTIA is starting the IT Hall of Fame to honor the industry’s top business leaders and innovators.
The new virtual shrine will build on the legacy of an earlier hall of fame established by industry publication CRN, CompTIA said today.
Honorees from the CRN Industry Hall of Fame will be grandfathered into CompTIA’s new IT Hall of Fame, according to IBD’s tech blog Click. They include Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, William Hewlett and Dave Packard of Hewlett-Packard, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Andy Grove of Intel.
CRN hasn’t chosen any new inductees for its Industry Hall of Fame since 2007.
At the very least, CompTIA needs to create a website that provides details on all the honorees and their accomplishments. CRN doesn’t have one.

National Toy Hall of Fame

The National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong museum in Rochester, N.Y., on Nov. 4 inducted two new toys – playing cards and Hasbro’s The Game of Life board game.
The two honorees were selected from among 12 toy finalists that included: Cabbage Patch Kids, chess, dollhouse, dominoes, Dungeons & Dragons, Hot Wheels, Lite Brite, Magic 8 Ball, pogo stick, and Rubik’s Cube.

Robot Hall of Fame

The Robot Hall of Fame was supposed to induct two fictional robots and three real robots this year. But organizers canceled the induction ceremony because of a lack of funding, according to IBD’s tech blog Click.
The 2010 class of inductees was to include the T-800 Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 movie “The Terminator,” and Huey, Dewey and Louie from the 1971 science-fiction film “Silent Running.”
The real-world robots honored were the DaVinci Medical Robot System from Intuitive Surgical, the Roomba vacuum cleaner from iRobot, and NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
The Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science created the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003 to honor both real-world robotic achievements and fictional robots that have inspired countless scientists.
Inductees are enshrined at a permanent robotics exhibit called Roboworld at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will announce its 2011 inductees on Dec. 15.
Fifteen nominees are in the running this year including Alice Cooper, Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Neil Diamond, J. Geils Band and Tom Waits. The winners will be enshrined at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Hip Hop Hall of Fame

The Hip Hop Hall of Fame Awards is teaming with Hip Hop Pioneers to relaunch the Official Hip Hop Hall of Fame Awards Induction Ceremony & Concert Television Show.
The show is scheduled for taping on April 28. It will be the first broadcast of the Hip Hop Hall of Fame Awards Show since it aired in national syndication and on the BET Cable Network in the ’90s.
Organizers also are hoping to build a Hip Hop Hall of Fame museum in New York City.

Today’s brilliant idea: hall-of-fame hall of fame

The opening of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday got me thinking.
There are so many halls of fame now that there needs to be a hall of fame for halls of fame.
I amaze myself sometimes.
Wikipedia lists about 170 halls of fame, mostly for sports. There are 11 halls of fame for motorsports, 10 for baseball and softball, eight for horse racing and six for professional wrestling.

There are 22 halls of fame for music, including such categories as rock and roll, country, blues, jazz, classical, gospel, rockabilly and polka.
We have halls of fame for astronauts, cowboys, miners, the insurance industry, sports mascots, and porn stars.
Not all halls of fame have physical locations. Some are only online.
But here are my picks for interesting halls of fame to visit:

1. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, Ohio
2. Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Mass.
3. Robot Hall of Fame, Carnegie Science Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.
4. National Toy Hall of Fame, Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester, N.Y.
5. NASCAR Hall of Fame, Charlotte, N.C.
6. United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, Titusville, Fla.
7. National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
8. National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum, Alexandria, Va.
9. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, N.Y.
10. Pro Football Hall of Fame, Canton, Ohio
11. International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, Arlington, Texas
12. Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Seattle, Wa.

Terminator, Roomba in Robot Hall of Fame

The Robot Hall of Fame has chosen the T-800 Terminator from the 1984 film “The Terminator” and iRobot’s Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner for its latest class of inductees.
The other members of the class of 2010 are NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity; Intuitive Surgical’s DaVinci Medical Robot System; and Huey, Dewey, and Louie from the 1971 film “Silent Running.” Check out the press release here.
Carnegie Science Center and Carnegie Mellon University announced the inductees Tuesday at a press preview of Roboworld, the Pittsburgh science center’s new robotics exhibition opening June 13. Roboworld will be the permanent home for the Robot Hall of Fame. The hall honors both real world robots and fictional robots.
The five inductees (actually eight, but who’s counting) are all fine choices. For the second year in a row, real robots outnumber the fictional ones among the selections. That’s a testament to the maturation of the robotics industry.
My only complaint is that the group won’t be formally inducted until a ceremony next year. So, the Robot Hall of Fame is skipping a year of inductees. The last three classes of inductees have been done every two years. As a robot enthusiast, that’s disappointing to me. There are enough interesting robots to be inducted annually. Hopefully with the Roboworld exhibit opening, inductions will take place on a yearly basis after next year.

My picks for Robot Hall of Fame this year: Transformers and Terminator

Every year about this time, the Robot Hall of Fame announces its latest inductees. The honorees include both real robots from science and industry and fictional robots that have inspired future engineers and researchers.
CNet, a unit of CBS, recently made its choices for the top five “coolest movie robots” and “best TV robots.”

Several of those top robots already have made it into the Robot Hall of Fame, which was established in 2003 by the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
CNet’s picks for the top five coolest movie robots are, in ascending order: Maria from “Metropolis” (1927), Marvin the Paranoid Android from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (2005), Robby the Robot from “Forbidden Planet” (1956), Johnny-5 from “Short Circuit” (1986), and the pairing of R2-D2 and C-3PO from “Star Wars” (1977).
CNet’s choices for the five best TV robots are, in ascending order: Rosie the Robot from “The Jetsons” (1962-63 and 1985-87), Robot from “Lost in Space” (1965-68), Cylon from “Battlestar Galactica” (1978-80 and 2003-2009), Bender from “Futurama” (1999-2003 and 2008-present), and Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994).
Of those CNet picks, five are in the Robot Hall of Fame – Maria, Robby the Robot, R2-D2, C-3PO and Data.
Other fictional robots in the hall are HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), Astro Boy from the Japanese show “Astro Boy” (1963-66), Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951), and David the android child from “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” (2001).
Here’s my list of the top five fictional robots that aren’t already in the Robot Hall of Fame:

1. Transformers – These “robots in disguise” likely got a lot of kids interested in engineering with cars, trucks and other vehicles that transform into humanoid robots. I’d induct all the Transformers at once – heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons. That way you cover all the favorite characters: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, etc. Transformers have been popular as toys, comic books, cartoons, and movies.



2. Terminator – Once again, I’d induct the whole class of robots known as Terminators. That includes the original Arnold Schwarzenegger model and different models from the movies and TV series.



3. Wall-E – Disney Pixar’s animated film “Wall-E” (2008) showed a future where robots do our dirty work and take care of our every need. It also was a touching romance between two lonely robots (Wall-E and Eve).



4. Cylons – Yet again, I’d induct all the Cylons from “Battlestar Galactica.” That includes the original chrome Centurions from the 1978-80 TV series, the reimagined Centurion “toasters” and the humanoid “skin-jobs” of 2003-09 TV series.



5. Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT) – KITT is the Pontiac Trans Am controlled by a computer with artificial intelligence from the 1982-86 TV series “Knight Rider.” Let’s just forget the follow-ups and remakes. Who wouldn’t want a talking car that can chauffeur you around and give you personal advice?

Runners up include Robot from “Lost in Space,” Rosie the Robot from “The Jetsons,” Nomad from “Star Trek” the original series (1967), Bishop from “Aliens” (1986) , Gunslinger (played by Yul Brynner) from Michael Crichton’s “Westworld” (1973), and Huey, Dewey & Louie from “Silent Running” (1972).
The Transformers and Terminator robots would be good choices this year since both have big-budget summer movies coming out. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” opens on June 24. “Terminator: Salvation” is out May 21.

You can vote for your favorite robots or nominate ones not listed at the Robot Hall of Fame Web site. The list of nominees needs to be cleaned up however. It contains a lot of duplicate entries and some that are already in the hall of fame.
The 2009 inductees to the Robot Hall of Fame are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday.