Artistic Automata

Today I'm going to be writing about Blair Somerville. Somerville is a creator of automata. Before I continue I want to clarify at least how I personally define an automaton as opposed to something like a robot. Most people when they hear automata probably think of the one in Hugo or the Japanese Karakuri Ningyo (which are awesome and deserve a post of their own), and both of these are good examples of what people mean when discussing automata. The simplest definition of an automaton is that it's a mechanical device. This might sound like an awful lot like a robot to most people, but it's missing one key aspect, which is it isn't programmable. If you want a really cool automaton-like device Jaquet-Droz, who made some really cool automata. One of his creations is The Writer, which unlike other automata where you wind them up and they do something, this one has the ability to write custom text, making it programmable.

Now that that's out of the way, lets get into Somerville's automata. I found this short film about him, which doesn't go into too much detail about the automata themselves, but you get to see some really cool pieces. My personal favorite are the tentacles in the grass.



He has a gallery in a small town in New Zealand,  so the likelihood of getting a chance to see his creations in person are pretty slim but if you find yourself in that part of the world (or are from that part of the world) you should definitely check it out.

Print(Hello World);

And that is probably the closet I will come to actually talking about programming, so I hope you enjoyed what is literally one of the oldest jokes in the CS book. But, seriously I, like many before me couldn't resist the urge.

The reason I am not going to talk about programming is because although I possess the requisite skills, am not a programmer, though I am interested in tech (hence this blog). Although I was first introduced to programming through a slew of 100 level CS courses (and beyond), programming was never my cup of tea. It wasn't till I took a physical computing class where I discovered the likes of Arduino and the exciting world of microprocessors.

This pared with a Discreet Math class I was taking lead to me realize I really like physical computing and the more low level aspects of programming. As I mentioned being a fan of the Arduino I do have some interest in the Maker/Hacker community, although my real passion is in Robotics, which is why you will find a slew of dissected Furbys in my apartment.

So what are my credentials? Well being a twenty something who just graduated college means I don't have that much. But on top of being a whopping two courses short of a minor in CS, I was on my college's Robocup (robotic soccer) team, as well as a mentor for a local private schools' VEX robotics team. So if nothing else I have a lot of experience programming robots.

So what is this blogs deal, if not about programming? It's about technology and it taking unexpected turns, as well as just aspects of technology that I personally find interesting.

A good example of the sort of things I will be writing about is Chinese farmer and artist/engineer of sorts Wu Yulu. Wu Yulu builds these robots out of scrap parts, and they are really impressive. Above is one of his robots that I was lucky enough to see on display in London. Although he has other robots that can pull carts, light cigarettes, and climb up walls, I personally think it's one of the more impressive ones, because although it doesn't balance on it's own (see the wheels in back), one of the major takeaways from Robocup is that bipedal motion, even ignoring the balancing thing is hard, and it is nothing short of a miracle that we humans can do it so effectively.

Well if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed my first post, and stay tuned for more.