Science City Robotic Labyrinth – Day 0

1.21.2009 (Wednesday) —  Day 0  —

Check out what started it all, here’s the original article: Arduino Powered Robotic Labyrinth Game.

The attention we received last week from the Robotic Labyrinth game video on YouTube was amazing. Getting mentioned on the front page of engadget, makezine, and wiiFanboy was exciting and helped boost our web servers into overdrive.

WiiFit Robotic Labyrinth makes it on Makezine and Engadget

I was invited to a meeting on Wednesday January 21, 2009 with Jeff, the Director of Science City, and two of our Kansas City Robotics Society (KCRS) members, Terry and Richard. The discussion was about building exhibits for their interactive museum. A few ideas included a Rube Goldberg style exhibit, a walk through Theremin, and a Robotic Labyrinth.

Jeff liked all of these ideas but wanted to scale the small board game up some. How about up to 12 feet and use a soccer ball in place of the marble! He was also offering to place the Robotic Labyrinth in a prime location at their maze park on the lower level. So the challenge to build this Giant Robotic Labyrinth began. We met later that evening at Terry’s house to discuss this news with other KCRS members and began planning how to build the projects.

Maze Park location in Science City

So what does this have to do with social media?

Bre Pettis

I’m inspired by the web presence portrayed by several people, one in particular is Bre Pettis. He is a founding member of the NYC Resistor hacker space in Brooklyn, New York and was featured in many Make Weekend Project videos. He is also host of a pilot TV program called History Hacker for the History Channel. Unfortunately they didn’t pick up the show as a series. It is truly our loss, History Hacker brought Science and Technology to the forefront in a way that would have inspired millions of people of all ages.

Bre possesses the Maker ethic and has a solid grasp on the power of social media. A couple of months ago Bre started publishing a video-a-day for a month. In that spirit I plan to document our concepts, design, building, and delivery of the Giant Robotic Labyrinth to Science City. Our goal is to finish this project by the end of February to lead into our grand opening ceremonies of the Cowtown Computer Congress (CCCKC), Kansas City’s own shared space for tinkerers, hackers, explorers, artists, inventors and technology enthusiasts as we open up our Underground Lab.

As this project goes along I’ll introduce other inspirational people I follow and their places on the web along with some personal thoughts and perspectives. I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think. Your comments here are welcomed

Read on, check out Day[1] = 1.22.2009

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