Found in the โdark roomโ at the World Maker Faire in New York: a larger-than-life robot marionette made of hand-blown glass tubes, noble gases, and a highly unusual marionette motor drive.
It was the glass sculptureโs eerie, squirming glow that caught my eye, but as I got closer I realized that it was moving, too. The PlasmaBotโs joints are suspended by wires connected to motors, and itsย Maker, Wayne Strattman, was driving his creation to move and wave at me.
Strattman told me that while heโs an old hand at making plasma displays (youโve seen his worksย providing specialย effects in science museums and in Star Trek movies), making a 7-foot-high marionette was a new experience for him.
It was new for MIT, too. Strattman said he worked with robot experts there to computerize his marionette, but that the team hit roadblocks, since โthe marionette robot problem is unsolved.โ Apparently body parts, wires, and the suspending beams interact in a way that has yet to be programmed successfully into a motion control system. Theyโre working on it. In the meantime, Strattman controls PlasmaBot with a panel of toggle switches.
If youโre in New York for the World Maker Faire, the stunning PlasmaBot is in the dark room, which is upstairs in the science museumโs Viscusi Gallery.
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