Images: Aibo, Gort join Robot Hall of Fame

Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science pays homage to Sony's robot pup and several movie robots.

By Bill Detwiler, Editor in Chief, TechRepublic on July 20, 2006

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Aibo

Aibo may have outlived its usefulness for Sony, but its contributions to robotics have made a lasting impression. The four-legged mechanical pup, which has played many a game of robo-soccer, is one of the five new inductees to the Robot Hall of Fame at Carnegie Mellon University. The inductees were named late Wednesday; the induction ceremony will take place June 21.

"The Aibo has evolved to be a robust, fully programmable robot with perception, onboard computing and great four-legged motion," Manuela Veloso, a computer science professor who leads Carnegie Mellon's RoboCup soccer teams, said in a statement.

Alas, belt-tightening at Sony forced the company earlier this year to dispense with its robotics unit.

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Gort

The Robot Hall of Fame pays homage to fictional robots as well as real-world ones. Among the 2006 inductees is Gort, the strong-but-silent android from the 1951 film, "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

"Gort was a reaction to a world mired in post-Holocaust existential relativism, to belief in definable concepts of 'good and evil' and other societal and moral dictums," Don Marinelli, director of the Entertainment Technology Center, said in a statement.

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Maria

One of the most famous, and perhaps the earliest, celluloid robot was the art deco-styled Maria, from Fritz Lang's silent film, "Metropolis." She's also among this year's inductees.

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SCARA

The decidedly more utilitarian design heading into the Hall of Fame is SCARA--short for selective compliance assembly robot arm--a popular class of industrial robot developed in the 1970s and '80s. It was used in pick-and-place assembly and packaging operations.

For more photo galleries of robots, click here.

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David

The final 2006 honoree is David, the waif from Steven Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence: AI." Earlier inductees into the Robot Hall of Fame include the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO from the "Star Wars" movies; Asimo, a biped from Honda; and the Mars rover Pathfinder.

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