Millennia hamming it up for the cameras. Credit: Ada Brunstein

On Saturday, July 16th in lower Manhattan the sprawling red carpet in the Three Legged Dog Art and Technology Center lit up with flashes from cameras snatching shots of the evening's stars.

But the most photographed woman of the evening wasn't a Hollywood starlet, it was Marilyn Monrobot, also known as Heather Knight, organizer of the first Robot Film Festival. And the stars weren't just of the human variety; some of them were battery-powered.

A pint-sized humanoid bot made by Aldebaran Robotics donned a flashing bow-tie as he shuffled down the red carpet.

Aldebaran's robot getting a hand on the red carpet. Credit:Ada Brunstein

Pleo, the robotic dinosaur first developed by Ugobe and later acquired by Innvo Labs Corporation, also made an appearance.

Pleo, the world's most modern dinosaur. Credit: Ada Brunstein

Most impressive was Millennia, an endearing huge-headed robot used for "techno-marketing" developed at International Robotics, whose clients include IBM, Reebok and General Motors, according to its website. This picturesque cast of characters gathered to celebrate the cinematic integration of man and machine.

The world through Millennia's eyes. Credit: Ada Brunstein

In putting together the film festival Knight, who is a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, was motivated by the power of narrative. "In Western Culture there is often a dirth of positive storytelling about robotics, but as a robotics researcher, I know that that undersells the innovations and exciting moves forward of our field. With this festival, we hoped not only to highlight the great work and machines that are already out there, but balance the depiction of mythologies around the creation of robotics," she said.

The evening was a visual and musical extravaganza which included comedic robot reggae by Reggie Watts, and a dance lesson in how to do the robot by street performer Josh Ventura. Donning a sparkling black gown, Knight handed out Botskers (Robot Oscars) to each of the 10 winners.

The films ranged in genres from fiction to documentary and from comedy to uncanny.

The Audience Award (determined by the number of tweeted votes) went to Operation daVinci, in which a surgical research robot at John's Hopkins University deftly removes body parts from the perennial patient in the children's game Operation.

The Machine by Rob Shaw was a surprising choice for Best Picture given that Knight generally wanted to avoid the clichéd images of world-dominating robots. But the film, which Knight said, "blew judges away in artistry and construction" is visually exquisite, so much so that I had to check the credits carefully to make sure Tim Burton wasn't one of the creators. In the dark animated film a man creates a humanoid robot that kills the men he meets and ravages the earth in a manner eerily reminiscent of human habits. Having destroyed everything in its path, the robot becomes bored and, in a haunting ending, creates a man.

The Ethics and Impact award went to Chorebot by Greg Omelchuck who created a world in which a dog becomes robot's best friend because man has become too machine-like.

Other categories include Most Uncanny, Best Story, and Scientifically Hard Core. According to the film festival website, criteria for selecting films from among the 74 submissions included relevance to robotics, storytelling, depiction of interaction between robots and people, and inspiration of future technologies. Winners received a 3D printed statuette depicting an energy efficient light bulb.

All categories and winning films can be found here.

Darwin OP Open Platform Humanoid Project.

The exhibit hall at this year's IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) was chock full of disembodied robotic arms, humanoid robots that bumped into things they were supposed to avoid, and Lego-like parts for assembly into everything from robotic dogs to calligraphy machines.

If the gathering in Shanghai was any indication of our technological future, robotic arms are the next big thing. Some, like Yaskawa's arc welding Motoman, will be used in factories (though at the exhibit two arms on display were carrying out a carefully choreographed light saber duel; video at the bottom of this post). Other companies, like Barret Technologies, build "assistive robotic arms", one of which, the rep tells me, is currently being used as a surgeon's aid in knee surgery. The idea is that the surgery is pre-programmed and since the robot's movements are more precise than the fallible human hand, the robot guides the surgeon's hands through the surgery. That's right, the robot guides the surgeon. The arm has 7 degrees of freedom and runs about $150k.

Shanghai XPartner's robot.

Educational robotics was another running theme at ICRA this year. Shanghai XPartner Robotics' Dragon Guard is a robotic playmate and study partner. As the rep explained to me (not knowing I was there with my MIT Press book exhibit), kids may be bored with reading. The vaguely humanoid bot (shown to the right), with big blue eyes, touch-screen belly and voice recognition software, can function as an e-reader among other things. I'm not sure how print books can compete with that.

The Darwin OP Open Platform Humanoid Project sells humanoid bots to university research labs for about $12k. The bot's black shell and vaguely devilish head design gives it a more mischievous look than most humanoid bots. It has a full PC built into it and is intended as a research platform, but its main function in the exhibit hall was to follow a red ball around and kick it. Of course the bot knows "red" but doesn't know from "ball", so in a moment of distraction it headed straight for a red chair and tried to kick that instead.

Robotic kits were also popular at ICRA. Dynamixel sells networked actuators for students to assemble and program. The before-and-after pics would go something like this: a box of electronics vaguely resembling absolutely nothing before; a humanoid robot programmed to move in particular ways after. Robotechn's parts were demoed as robotic worms and starfish displaying different modes of movement selected by the user using a remote control.

And my personal favorite, the Aldebaran robot that sells for $12k as a research platform. It looks like a roughly two-foot kid-bot, has a sleek blue and white design, almost life-like micro-movements, and can fixate on and follow a red ball so convincingly that you almost forget it's not autonomous. The crowd of spectators probably did forget as they watched it "lead" a procession of robots around the exhibit hall, all seeming to "follow" the Aldebaran bot in a bizarre robo-parade led by a red ball.

The robotic light saber duel:

Ada Brunstein is a freelance writer and senior acquisitions editor at MIT Press.