<![CDATA[io9: bots]]> http://tags.lifehacker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: bots]]> http://io9.com/tag/bots http://io9.com/tag/bots <![CDATA[Brazilian Booping Robots Will Have You Doing the Twitchy Dance]]> This little wind-up bot from Brazilian toymaker and environmental activist Chico Bicalho does a spastic jitter when you let it go. In fact, all Bicalho's creations are goofy, jumpy critters that are pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect from a robot. They shoot sparks, wobble lopsidedly on their wheels, and hurl themselves upsidown if given a chance. I'm lucky enough to own one, called a Sparklz, that is a wobbly fire-squirter. Check out some videos of Sparklz and its crazy bot friends below.

It's Friday morning, and even the bots are dancing to celebrate. Here's another one, called Cosmo Jetz. And here's Cranky.
Kritteria [Chico Bicalho]

]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=362192&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Ceramic Manga Cultural Smashups by Brendan Tang]]> Meet the Manga Ormolu: She's made entirely of ceramic and is a strange combination of futurist mecha-bot straight out of Appleseed, and an Ormolu vase straight out of eighteenth century France, where the Europeans amused themselves by collecting Chinese vases as exotic symbols of otherworldiness. (Today Ormolu copies are sold to tourists in Chinatowns across the world.) You can meet Manga Ormolu's friends in our gallery.

This amazing artwork was created by Canadian artist Brendan Tang, who loves to explore the cross-cultural weirdness of Asian pop with his mecha vases.

Find out more about Tang's work, and read his artist statement, on his site. You gotta love a guy who can talk about the history of cultural imperialism and the coolness of manga in the same paragraph.

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