I just sent a friend request to Roboy, even though he's not quite born yet. Swiss roboticists at the Artificial Lab of the University of Zurich are aiming to unveil the world's "most modern tendon driven robot" next May, and tech blogs the sphere over are licking their chops because Roboy looks amazing.
Kurzweil AI explains that
15 project partners and over 40 engineers and scientists are constructing Roboy as a tendon-driven robot modeled on human beings (robots usually have their motors in their joints, giving them that “robot” break-dance look), so it will move almost as elegantly as a human.
Roboy will be a “service robot,” meaning it will execute services independently for the convenience of human beings, as in the movie Robot & Frank.
Since Roboy will presumably be incapable of jewel theft, his brain trust turned to other also unconventional means to gather the revenue needed to build him. Basically, they're turning this "most advanced humanoid robot" into a tiny mechanical billboard; the android equivalent of a NASCAR car.
The Roboy team is, unsurprisingly, crowd-funding the project, though they're using their own platform so Kickstarter or IndieGogo won't snag a cut. And each of the incentives for backing includes offering your company logo placement on prime real estate on the robotic child's body—they're leasing out space on just about every open inch of the droid.
The more you pay, the more front and center your company's logo will be when they unveil the unit in coming months—and the more it will be prominently slathered across the blogosphere when the first PR blast of photos goes out.
While not entirely new, it's perhaps the most aggressive variant of this pitch I've seen. Part of the understated logic seems to be that if Roboy is a hit when it takes the stage in a few months, images of the cheerily skeletal iRobot spawn will show up all over the international media. For $1,000, you can slap your company's name on its head when it does. For $5,000 and up, the logo gets onto the chest, stage-center. That's way cheaper than a billboard or a TV spot, and even less than many online banner ads.
The strategy seems to be working. Roboy is now sponsored not just by robotics and tech firms, but by larger, more mainstream companies too; Canon, for instance, has backed the project. Hell, I'm considering ponying up 50 Swiss Francs to get my blog's logo on its leg.
With Roboy, the branding was obviously not a primary concern; it seems a bit more like an afterthought to raise more funds after development went over budget. But it still raises some worthy ponderables: In an era of dwindling public funding, is this the fate of advanced robotics and independent envelope-pushing tech projects? Does this crack the door open for high-flying drones branded with fast food logos? Hyper-efficient wind turbines that double as billboards, maybe? DARPA dogs boasting guns 'n ammo brands?
And, of course: will the robots of the future be born with corporate tattoos? I think, given our current trajectory, the answer is pretty clear.