Gadget report from Yuri's Night at NASA

Peter Foucault's drawing robot.

(Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

There was an amazing party last Friday at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., celebrating the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, which was made by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin. While CNET News.com has already penned a great article on the event, I thought I'd add my two cents on some of the cool gadgets I spotted at the party.

Gaspo's ChakraTron

(Credit: Donald Bell / CNET Networks)

Peter Foucault's drawing robots drew a steady crowd the entire night. These two little robots had Sharpie pens mounted on them and were contained within what looked like a little robot boxing ring. Only instead of a rock-'em, sock-'em robot war, the two robots were busy creating a randomly generated art piece generated by the markers that they dragged across the paper mat beneath them. What made the piece truly random was the fact that the robots would shut down every few minutes until someone in the audience clapped loud enough to wake them up. This sleeping routine would randomize their direction and insure that each piece of art they generated was unique from the last. It also made for a lot of fun watching people clap at little robots.

The second cool gadget I wanted to take home with me was a large Buddha encrusted with chandelier glass and lit from the inside by 360 rotating LEDs controlled by 126 microprocessors. Originally created for the Burning Man festival by an artist named Gaspo, the ChakraTron not only looks very cool, but it also generates magic eight-ball answers on a small monochrome LED screen when a coin is placed in its built-in donation plate.

There's loads of Yuri's Night photos up on Flickr, including my own cardboard jet pack and a great set produced by Laughing Squid.

[Nibsy13]

I had that robot

I had that purple robot, i got it for christmas when i was like 8 lol, thats so cool. it came in a $40 kit, amazing what you can do with something so basic

[genotypewriter]

That's not what the clapping does...

There are so many ways to "randomise" these things to make them random-enough for plain humans and this is no achievement. The clapping overcomes this mechanical randomness and adds a human touch to the process, thereby making the artwork special.

[MadDash]

Crave the ChakraTron?

Instead of Buddha, what if the ChakraTron was made in the image of Jesus or Mohammed?
Not only was it insulting to turn Buddha into a light show, he dispenses wisdom via a "magic eight" ball type response to a 'donation'.....ARGH! Answer this..."what would Jesus do?"
Crave this!?!!? - Good choice Donald...