1. Project 2: The Robot

1.1. Background

The concept of a “robotics” has been part of world culture for many centuries.

--ARISTOTLE

The word “robot” itself comes from one of my favorite plays “RUR" or "Rossum’s Universal Robots” written by the Czech playwright Karel Capek in 1921. The word comes from the Czech word “robota”, meaning drudgery or labor. The play takes place in the future on Rossum's island where mechanical drones are commercially made to complete heavy manual labor. There is debate in the play over whether robots can have feelings or have a soul. Eventually the robots rebel against their leaders and decide to abolish mankind, leading to the destruction of the human race with robots as the dominant being.

Each generation develops their own understanding of the archetype “robot”.

In the 1930’s robots were popularized in film by the "Flash Gordon" movies starring Larry Crabbe. In an underwater epic, Flash is captured by several robots which look like mechanical men.

In 1956, the movie, "Forbidden Planet" was released, featuring "Robby, the Robot", who became one of the most well-known robots ever. In the movie, a ship from Earth leaves in search of a missing expedition of which there were only two survivors. Robby the robot also appeared in several other movies and TV shows including "The Twilight Zone" and "Lost in Space".

The TV show, "The Jetsons" (1962) is the first futuristic cartoon with robot characters . The show takes place in the future where there man high-tech advancements such as personal space ships which have taken the place of cars for there are no roads, humanoid robots doing human work including the Jetsons' robot maid, Rosie.

In 1966 the TV show "Lost in Space" debuts, about the various adventures of the Space Family Robinson and the helpfulrobot a.k.a. "B-9". (“Danger Will Robinson!”)

Perhaps the most familiar (and most loved) robots to us today are the “Star Wars” robots R2D2 and C3PO.

1.2. Project Objectives

The object of this project is to design, model and texture a robot. You can, if you like, pattern your robot on existing media portrayals of robots or you can design one completely from your imagination.

1.3. Project Requirements

Your robot must be placed in some sort of environment that best displays its attributes. For instance, you might place your robot on a distant planet, a factory, a kitchen or any other scene that best suits your robot design. You will need to model this environment and place the robot within it.

You project must include numerous textures. These can be on the robot itself, in the environment or both. You can download textures from the “Textures” folder on our course site or download them from the web. Be careful that your textures are not too large as to make the modeling of your robot difficult (Always check the texture file size before adding it to your model). Make sure you “embed” your textures in your .blend file. Directions for doing this are in one of the video tutorials “Packaging Textures”.

1.4. Student Examples

Examples of this project can be viewed in the Student Work folder.