Cat Licker robot
Searching for and licking plush cats. Winner of Bacarobo Europe 2010
You may ask what a cat licker robot is good for. The answer is simple: nothing. That is its purpose.
This seems like a contradiction. Actually the Bacarobo competition is a contradiction itself. This competition is about robotics but those robots which serves a reasonable function are not supported here. Organizers of Bacarobo are much more found of stupid robots - robots that are completely useless but have some stupid aims.
The idea of Cat Licker is based on the behaviour of mother cats when they lick their children. We though it would be awesome if a robot could do that as a substitute so we made this cubic-cat-shape robot with long tongue attached to a disfunctioned CD-ROM drive.
The jury of Bacarobo Europe found this idea extremely stupid and funny so that our Cat Licker won the main prize.
Bacarobo was fist organized in Tokyo by the founder of the Japanese Maywa Denki group, Tosa Nobumichi, and since then the competition of stupid robots has been organized year after year.
Bacarobo Europe is the joint event of Kitchen Budapest and the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts.
Year: 2010
Category: device art
Host institutions: Kitchen Budapest, Trafó, Maywa Denki
My Role: contribution to concept, design, arduino programming
Partners in crime:
Eduard Sik, Bálint Ferenczi, Judit Boros
More information:
· bacarobo.kibu.hu, bacarobo.com
Publications:
in english:
- Bacarobo `stupid robot` contest is back, and it`s hilarious (video) - engadget 2010-11-09