Finally, a post from me with no critters in.

Except for these cute lil’ smiley robots! With bike flags! Requesting your help!

Kacie Kinzer is a student working on her thesis at ITP. (It’s a graduate program in alternative media.) She built these cute little guys and set ’em loose in Washington Square Park in New York to see if people would interact with them and help them get to where they wanted to go. Their bike flags have a message requesting help in getting to a particular location, and Kinzer followed along with a camera to see what would happen.

Fully expecting to lose more than a few robots, Kinzer did not expect New Yorkers to stop to help a rolling bit of cardboard with a smile drawn on. But these 10-inch-short dudes all made it! Every time they got caught on a crack or stuck under a bench, someone nudged them out and pointed them in the right direction. Or not, if that meant that the robot would head into danger…one guy turned the robot around because it would get run over in the street. Aww!

She’s working on other little robot projects, but the documentation isn’t up for those yet. Those guys are pretty cute, too, though…