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Robot Outings

Over the years I have had my robots at various computer fairs, and exhibitions, a lot of which I can't remember.
Here are some later ones which I can remember.


2015-10-24 Blackpool Maker Space
The new Maker Space at the Crossways Hotel in Blackpool was having an open day to attract people. I was asked to take some robots.

2015-09-12 Saturday Salt Fair - Winsford
Cycler Shakespeare, Loki, Freya, Stryder, Thor, Tom, Sam, Efi, Hextor, and Bambinos.

2014 July 26/27, Mini Maker Faire at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).
Cycler Shakespeare, four Bambinos, Alex, Hextor, Frea, Thor1, Shadow Leg, Sam, Efi, Joe, Condor and Stryder.
The photos wer taken at set-up on the Friday evening so there are no people.

2013 December 13/14/15, Makers' Area - Model Engineer Exhibition, Sandown Park.
I was contacted by the organiser to see if I would be willing have my robots on show. Since I was already travelling to London on the 10th to take the refurbished Shadow Biped to the Science Museum (see below), I agreed. This was the first time there had been a Maker Area at the exhibition and it seems as though the Model Engineer exhibition needs new blood. When I last went to an exhibition in the early 90s it was a huge affair with lots of trade stands and exhibited models, however this time I initially wondered where the other hall was and where the exhibition models were, it turned out there was only the one hall and the exhibition models were in a lounge room upstairs.
Nevertheless the Maker Area was full of interested visitors most of the time. I had Two Bambinos, a Bamduino, Amblers Sam Efi and Tom, TecFoot-Condor, Loki, Freya, Thor-1, Hextor and Alex.
     
2013 December 10, Director's Drinks Party, the Science Museum, London.
The Shadow Biped has now been acquired by the Science Museum London for their Permanent Collection. I restored it and delivered it there on 10th December 2013 and it was the star exhibit at the Director's Christmas Drinks Party where they show off to invited guests the latest acquisitions.
 
2013 August 14/15, FabLab Ellesmere Port - promotion for its openeing.
Wednesday 14th, the BBC filmed my robots at the FabLab Manchester for a news item for Thursday morning about Ellesmere Port's new FabLab which opens next week.
Thursday 15th, We travelled to Ellesmere Port where I showed my robots in a shopping mall and then at the FabLab where a group of school children were taking part in maker activities.
Two Bambinos, a Bamduino, Sam-Ambler, Efi-Ambler, TecFoot-Condor, Stryder and Cycler-Shakespeare.

2013 August 10/11, Mini Maker Faire at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).
Condor, Wild-Eagle, Sam, Efi, Joe, two Bambinos, a Bamduino, Freya, Loki, Hextor, Stryder, Thor1, Alex, TecArm6 and Cycler Shakespeare.

I forgot to take any photos but there was an articles on me in the Oldham Evening Chronicle on Friday.

A photo of Shakespeare from last year's Maker Faire was on the cover of the Maker Pack.


2013 April 25, Art event at Bexton Primary School, Blackhill Lane, Knutsford, Cheshire
Following the Cheshire Open Studios Big Draw event in July 2012 at Knutsford, Bexton School requested something similar.
         
Besides various artists helping the children make collages I had my robots drawing again, well not so much drawing as leaving trails with attached pens.
Drawing were four Bambinos; Sam, Efi and Joe Ambler; and two Jets. Also there were Hextor, Condor, Wild-Eagle and Stryder. The children, as usual, were fascinated by the robots drawing and also had non stop questions about Hextor, Condor and Stryder.

2012 Sun 23rd September ITV News - Granada Reports.
On Friday 14th September Granada interviewed the FabLab Manchester. I never saw the report but I believe it included Condor and myself.
2012 August 26, Sunday Times Magazine - The Genius Room.
Some time in Spring the Sunday Times interviewed people who use the FabLab in Manchester, myself included. Then on June 15th they returned to do a photoshoot in the FabLab. The day before there had been a disasterous leak and since it is an architect designed building where the floor is 6 inches below the thresholds there was no where for the water to go so the floor was flooded and the water had to be pumped out! By the 15th the free water was gone but the carpet was saturated, nevertheless the photographer lied on the floor to take some of the photos!!
Shakespeare is on the left with me crouching down behind.

They didn't tell us when the article would be published and I had given up looking so I never got a copy and it costs £200 to view online.


2012 July 28/29, Mini Maker Faire at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).
Condor, Sam, Efi, Joe, Kas, Tom, Jid, two Bambinos, Frea, Stryder, Thor1, Alex and Cycler Shakespeare.
  
http://www.itv.com/news/granada/story/2012-07-28/manchesters-mini-maker-faire/ or http://vimeo.com/46536015# 00:10 - 00:16.
Alex head above and Condor below from screenshots of the Granada news item.
   
2012 July 21/22, Cheshire Open Studios drawing event at Knutsford Old Town Hall.
Various artists were to be drawing and I was asked if I could take the robots and get them to draw! I took the Amblers Sam, Efi, and Joe, two Bambinos and Condor, I attached pens and we made a robot enclosure and the robots left trails. I also took Cycler Shakespeare to attract attention. The robots seemed to be more popular than the humans.
David L Buckley's robots drawing David L Buckley's Bambino robot drawing David L Buckley's Sam robot drawing
It was such nice weather I let Condor wander about outside but on Sunday the wind which was blowing the artists' papers about proved troublesome to Condor as well.
Strange things happened on the Sunday, Sam tried to escape! The walls of the arena were taped together and just after midday I noticed Sam had kicked the wall free and was off on the carpet, I retaped the wall in place and put Sam at the opposite side of the enclosure, a few minutes later Sam had kicked the wall free again in just the same place as before. Once again I retaped the wall and placed Sam well away then a few minutes later Sam and Joe were trying to kick the wall free near another corner, the tape proved too strong and after a while they seemed to give up and went back to wandering about as before.
http://www.knutsfordguardian.co.uk/news/9834750.Robot_draws_visitors_in_to_Knutsford_landmark/
cached print version

Escape one, Escape two, Condor Sam and Bambino videos
escape 1 escape 1 escape 2 escape 2 Condor Condor drawing drawing
More...


2012 April 19-21, FabLab Manchester 2nd birthday party and exhibition
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots
Condor standing on the floor, three Bambinos, two Thors and Wild-Eagle; Stryder is round the corner.
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots
On the Thursday evening the room was full of people standing around drinking wine and talking. Condor was autonomously wandering about in and out of the people. The interesting thing was that nobody stood on Condor's feet nor tripped over him. Dogs and cats in similar situations get trodden on and you hear them yelp and I can only presume that adults have some sort of inbuilt toddler avoidance mechanism built into their brains.
2012 Saturday, Sunday 24th and 25th March, QL workshop and Quanta Annual General Meeting,
The QL workshop and Quanta Annual General Meeting was held at the Endeavour scout hall, Urmston, Manchester.
As usual I had my robots wandering around. Cycler Shakespeare, TecFoots Condor and WildEagle, Amblers Sam, Efi and Joe, and a couple of Bambinos.
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots
Youtube videos of Condor
Photos by Dilwyn Jones - www.dilwyn.me.uk/gen/quanta/agm2012/agm2012.html
2012 February 17th, FabLab Manchester
FabLab, David L Buckley's robots FabLab publicity day.

2011 Saturday, Sunday 22,23 October, Manchester Festival Of Science
Since summer 2011 I have been using the FabLab in Manchester to make Thor and Bambino as well as hang out with some interesting people. As part of the 'Bang Goes The Theory' exhibition the FabLab had stand which, other than the BBC's stage, was about a quarter of the display area and half of that was an area for about 25 of my robots.
The Cyclers Shelley and Shakespeare, under the control of various volunteers, talked about the FabLab, the TecFoot bipeds Condor and WildEagle wandered about amongst the people, the three foot high biped Stryder was occasionally switched on to stride across the arena, the Ambler small bipeds wandered about on a table where occassionally Freya, Frea, Toddler, Penguin, and the hexapods Hextor and Simplhex were demonstrated, The Dickens animatronic head, TecArms and Thor were static on another table and six Bambinos were demonstrated by Jamie on yet another table.
In all about 4000 people came through the hall over the two days.
MOSI, David L Buckley's robots MOSI, David L Buckley's robots
2011 Saturday, Sunday 16th and 17th April, QL workshop and Quanta Annual General Meeting,
The QL workshop and Quanta Annual General Meeting was held at the Endeavour scout hall, Urmston, Manchester.
I gave a talk on 'Robotics on the QL' and demonstrated My Zero-2 turtle controlled by the QL program I wrote from 11/1/86 onwards.
David L Buckley's robots From centre to right the robots are MM3, Zero-2 and Zeaker.
Photos by Dilwyn Jones - www.dilwyn.me.uk/gen/quanta/agm2011/agm2011.htm
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots

2009 Tuesday 27 October, Manchester Festival Of Science
Trafford Centre, near Urmston
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.
TecFoots Condor and Wild-Eagle wandering about the Trafford Centre interacting with the public.
2009 Monday 26 October, Manchester Festival Of Science
Museum Of Science and Industry, Manchester.
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.
TecFoots Condor and Wild-Eagle wandering about in the Festival Of Robotics room interacting with the public.

2009 12 September, The Cybernetics Society - Annual Meeting
Kings College, London.
TecFoot-Condor
The down side is that despite being an invited guest speaker and despite repeated reminders, as at February 2012, I have still not received the £100 speaker fee!!
2009 Friday 22 April, Robot Relays filming in Bristol
Millenium Square, Bristol.
Filming pilot footage for a TV program.
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots
2009 Saturday 28th March, Science Oxford open day
Science Oxford, 1-5 London Place, Oxford.
David L Buckley's robots
2009 Saturday 28 February Brighton 'Big Science' festival
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.
TecFoots Condor and Wild-Eagle and Mom and Pop Ambler
David L Buckley's robots
2008 29 November, Micromouse competition
Technology Innovation centre, Birmingham

2008 6,7 September, BA Festival Of Science, Liverpool
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.
TecFoot Condor and video
David L Buckley's TecFot Condor biped robot
2008 28 June, My robots on display at the Micromouse competition
Technology Innovation centre, Birmingham
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.

2008 4,5,6 June Cheltenham Science Festival
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.
David L Buckley's robots
2008 28 May to 1 June, Royal Bath & West Show
Robotics Outreach under the Walking With Robots banner.
David L Buckley's robots TecFoot demonstrated TecFoot exploring
TecFoot repairs

2008 17,18 May, Rise Of The Robots
National Space Centre, Leicester.
On the flier it said 'Check out one of the UK's largest private robot collections', I looked for it then realised it was my display. David L Buckley's robots Flier- Rise of the Robots
2008 12, 13th April, QUANTA Workshop and AGM 2008
3rd Davyhulme Scout Headquarters, Conway Road, Davyhulme, Manchester M41 0TE
TecFoots Wild-Eagle and Condor, Simplhex, Mom and Pop Ambler with Frea in front; and my talk on robotics.
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots
2008 17-21 February, Walking with Robots - Robotics Outreach Workshop
@Bristol, Millenium Square, Bristol.
Bristol University advertised a weekend Robotics Outreach Workshop, all expenses paid, for robotics researchers. I applied and even though I was not attached to a university they accepted me. The instructions said to bring a robot or part of a robot to show off during the workshop. As I was walking to the building carrying my robots I remember thinking "Is this a good idea, my robots are just made of wood, what will the others bring?". It turned out I needn't have worried because non of the others had anything to bring, not that it was too large or too fragile or too expensive or was all wired up to something or was in use or anything, they just didn't have anything to bring. So my robots were the only robots there and the whole of the workshop on Sunday was revised to feature my robots and interaction with the public downstairs. Prof Alan Winfield, the head of the Robotics Lab, even had publicity photos taken with my robots.
TecFoots Condor and Wild-Eagle and Mom and Pop Ambler
TecFoot Condor video, Ambler Pop video
David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots David L Buckley's robots A publicity photo with
Professor Alan Winfield
from UWE

2006 10 June, My robots on display at the Micromouse competition
Technology Innovation centre, Birmingham
David L Buckley's robots
2006 8,9 April, Quanta's Annual General Meeting
David L Buckley with robots David L Buckley with robots David's robots Quanta's Annual General Meeting for 2006 was held on 08-09/04/06 at the 3rd Davyhulme Scout Headquarters in Davyhulme, Manchester. I took along some of my robots.
Bipeds Mom and Pop Ambler, Toddler, Frea and Loki; and Hextor the hexapod.

2005 12th August, Discovery TV, program filming
David L Buckley with robots 12th August 2005, Discovery TV.
Martin Smith, Ian Swan and myself, David Buckley, in the robotics lab at the Open University. We were demonstrating our robots for a TV programme "The Science of Star Wars: Man and Machine" on the Discovery Science channel on Sky.

Ian Swan's white biped is just to the right of Martin.
Martin brought two hexapods, both just by his right hand.
The rest of the robots are mine.

more +


2003 March 26, Cycler launch at Houses of Parliament
Geoff, Dave, Vicky, Richard, me, Ben, Wendy, Martin Smith
All of WateWatch other than Martin and myself
Dave, Vicky, Ben
Baroness Hooper in yellow Vicky giving presentation Michael Meacher MP with children Lisa, Martin, Barbara, Meecher, ?, Wendy

2002 December, TechnoGames 2003
Taken at the filming of TechnoGames 2003 on Tuesday 17 December 2002
at Hangar 2, RAF Newton, Bingham, nr Nottingham.

Left to right can be seen:-
John Shepherd;
a red BigFoot;
a Parallax Toddler;
the prototype BigFoot;
'Cyborg' John Shepherd's biped;
Pop Ambler;
a production TecFoot;
Mom Ambler with David Buckley behind;
Scarlet by Roger Starnes, see Roger's pages on this site.

The following day, Wednesday 18 December, Cycler Shakespeare was filmed with Wendy Jenkinson from Waste Watch.
2002 Robodex (Japan). The organisers invited and paid for the Shadow Group to take the Shadow Biped to have on display at the exhibition.
Shadow Biped at Robodex2002 It was voted the favourite Robot by an exit poll.

1997 Robot Olympics, Glasgow
ROBOTIX97 13-16 March 1997, Glasgow, UK
David L Buckley's robot Victoria David L Buckley's robot Victoria Martin Smith of the University of East London
took my robot Victoria in her RoboCop guise
and maybe Elizabeth and TinyTim as well.

1996 Robot Olympics, Glasgow
Robotix96 exhibition in Glasgow, 15th & 16th March 1996.
David L Buckley's robots Victoria and Liberator
Victoria and Liberator
TealIcarusFred,  Hexy,  WiLF,  Timbug-IIQuester, M23Zeaker-blackZeaker-whiteProwlerDoubleVisionModular-1Zero-2First-StepShadow-Biped,  Omnivore,  LiberatorSimplhexElizabethVictoriaTinyTim,  Amater,  Clarissa-May and Snowdrop.
- Quester won the 'Thezeus Award 1996' created and presented by Alan Dibley.
- Simplhex won the 1st prize for multilegged unaided robots (ie autonomous robots).
- The Shadow Biped was voted the 'Best Robot' of the event.

1996 Model Engineering Show London
5th & 6th January 1996
Victoria
David L Buckley's robot Victoria
TinyTim
David L Buckley's robot TinyTim
Simplhex
David L Buckley's robot Simplhex
The University of East London had a recruitment stand at the show manned by Martin Smith and myself. I demonstrated Victoria, Simplhex and TinyTim (and maybe others). Simplhex was working off a bench power supply and was walking all day for both days and wore flats on the ends of its aluminium legs.

1994 December, University of East London - (UeL)
UeL had an Open Day and I demonstrated Victoria, Quester, First-Step, Simplhex, Timbug-II and TinyTim.
Victoria
David L Buckley's robot Victoria
Quester
Martin Smith and David L Buckley with his robot Quester
First-Step
David L Buckley's robot First-Step
Simplhex
David L Buckley's robot Simplhex
Timbug-II and TinyTim
David L Buckley's robots Timbug-II and TinyTim

1990 Robot Olympics, Glasgow
27th to 28th September 1990 at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. I took my robots -
Hexy, Quester, Modular-1, Shadow Biped, First-Step, Double-Vision,, Zero2, Icarus, Fred, Zeaker, MM3, Teal.
1990 Shadow Biped Tomorrow's World BBC Tv Science program, 18th January 1990.
David L Buckley and Shadow Biped Tomorrow's World - Shadow Biped Howard demonstrating the Shadow Data-Suit controlling the Shadow Biped.

1988 January, International Model Engineering Show, Wembley, England.
First-Step Modular-1 M23 Quester Zeaker
David L Buckley's robots ME 1998 David L Buckley's robots ME 1998 David L Buckley's robots ME 1998
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