Matt Whistler goes all robotic

I am a robot. I am a robot.

The geek in me loves robots. When I was at the age when I could barely reach the toaster to stick a metal knife in and electrocute my tiny socks off, I use to love drawing huge robots that dominated the living room and had all the neighbours running for cover.

A robot is described as being a mechanical intelligent agent. For me it’s a bodge job of bits, bish, bash, bosh or a joining together of strange eyes and body parts with the use of the software package Paint. I quite like the idea of having a meal with TOPIO the humanoid robot who played ping pong at the Tokyo International Robot Exhibition, although passing the salt over might be difficult. And we all remember Knight Rider with KITT the fictitious anthropomorphic robot. “Micheal you’re taking the wrong turning. Michael you’re getting my wheels dirty. Michael you’ve spilt coffee on my LCD mouth”.

I can’t quite explain why robots are currently bashing around in my brain. In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci sketched plans for a humanoid robot around 1495. I’ve got a great idea for a sloth robot that sits in a deckchair on the seafront and if you go near it, you hear a command. “Get me some chips will yer!” “Put some cream on my nose!” “Remove the crab from my grabber!” I feel sorry for the robot inside self service checkouts… she must be cramped in there. “There is an unexpected item in the bagging area. There is an unexpected item in the bagging area….” Well, you can’t blame me. I just wanted to sit down and rest me feet, shame I forgot to remove the tub of humous first.