BeatBots » Appearances

My Keepon updates

beatbots — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:49:13 +0000

We’re happy to report that the My Keepon toy is coming along nicely!

Last week, the MyKeepon.com website went live with a new music video featuring the toy.

We’ve had wonderfully supportive interviews/coverage from Businessweek, Engadget, CNET Crave, MIT Technology Review, Automaton, Robots Dreams, and Adafruit. And our press release has just gone out on the wire.

My Keepon is available for presale in ToysRUs.com in the US (where it has made their Fabulous 15 List), and at other retailers around the world.

In other news, My Keepon saw his first public showings at World Maker Faire. Marek carried My Keepon around the Faire to the great delight of fans and Keepon noobs alike. The toy held up wonderfully to the enthusiasm, handling, and loud noise! We also printed mini-Keepons from yellow ABS plastic (with bonus googly eyes) on our MakerBot Thing-O-Matic and gave them to the most excited children (and a few very excited adults).

We’re as excited as you are that My Keepon will be hitting shelves in just a few weeks!

Become a fan on Facebook and follow My Keepon on Twitter.

Updates: DTI, Pictoplasma, RoboGames

beatbots — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:00:42 +0000

A few updates on miscellaneous BeatBots happenings:

The Danish Technological Institute is using Keepon in a research project. We visited the Rosengårdskolen and Tornbjerg Skole in Odense, where the kids drew these fantastic pictures:

Marek spoke about Keepon, and the relationship between robotics and animation, at the Pictoplasma festival in Berlin on April 9, 2011.

Marek curated a robot short-film screening for the RoboGames Speaker Symposium in San Mateo, CA on April 16-17, 2011. This also served as a teaser for the upcoming Robot Film Festival in NY in July. Submit your robot stories for a shot at being featured on the silver screen! (Vimeo group here.)

The New Artist Project

beatbots — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:00:52 +0000

Marek was in Oslo with a collaborative team of roboticists and artists to install and open our New Artist project, “How to Build a Dishwasher,” at the Kunstnernes Hus. If you happen to be passing through Scandinavia between now and June 19th, please check out these two robots—a performer and a spectator creating art together.

UPDATE: Project page here. And a new video:

Keepon at Platoon Kunsthalle

beatbots — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:46:56 +0000

Keepon will be on exhibit for the next few weeks at Platoon Kunsthalle, an incredible art/culture space in Seoul that is built from shipping containers. (Or friend Soomi was a resident there last year.)

Keepon at Three Rivers Arts Festival

beatbots — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:00:02 +0000

Keepon is on display at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, an annual 10-day celebration of the arts in downtown Pittsburgh. During the weekend (June 5th, 6th, & 12th noon-6pm), Keepon is playing outside with kids at Point State Park in the Creativity Zone (sharing a tent with the Saturday Light Brigade). During the week (June 4th, 7th, 8th & 9th 4-8pm; June 10th & 11th noon-8pm), Keepon is in the gallery on the 3rd floor of 805-807 Liberty Avenue for the Art of Technology visual art exhibition, sharing floor space with local artists such as Lori Hepner and Burton Morris.

UPDATE: Photo by Renee Rosensteel.

Pictoplasma festival & DVD

beatbots — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:25:24 +0000

Keepon is again being featured in Pictoplasma‘s character design and animation festival, this time with the “Don’t You Evah” video. It will screen during the “Characters in Rhythm” session on April 9 at 2pm.

The video is also included in the latest book/DVD compilation, Characters in Motion Vol. 3.

CES 2010

beatbots — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:53:28 +0000

We exhibited Keepon at CES in Las Vegas last week, courtesy of JETRO.

Press included Hack a Day, Butterscotch, Bright Side of News, and two videos by Robotics Trends. We also had good fun out on the town with Evan at BotJunkie!

IREX 2009

beatbots — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:51:16 +0000

We just finished exhibiting Keepon at the International Robot Exhibition at Tokyo Big Sight. With Kokoro’s Actroid Sara as Keepon’s robo-buddy, our booth was rather popular!

We were covered by Robots Dreams (great to finally meet you, Lem!) and Akihabara News.

RoboDays Festival

beatbots — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:04:26 +0000

We’re exhibiting Keepon at the RoboDays Festival in Odense, Denmark. It’s the third such event, a follow-up to 2007′s Robots at Play festival (where we won the €10,000 grand prize). We were invited back to participate in the panel of judges. This year’s winner is the EyeSeeCam (picture below), a gaze-tracking helmet with a beautifully actuated foveal camera that follows the wearer’s eye movements.

The promo video for the event is brilliant:

Congressional Robotics Caucus briefing

beatbots — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:24:24 +0000

We were invited by TTC to demonstrate Keepon at the May 21, 2009 briefing of the Congressional Robotics Caucus at the Capitol in Washington, DC. The Caucus, chaired by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA), focuses on challenges faced by the nation’s emerging robotics industry. In addition to several demos, the presentations included an unveiling of A Roadmap for US Robotics.