Wanted: Home for Adventurous Robots

mr.crutch writes "According to an article by the Associated Press, Carnegie Mellon University is actively seeking at least 600 acres of abandoned land in Western Pennsylvania on which to test robots developed by the National Robotics Engineering Consortium. Land speculators may want to contact real estate agents in the Pittsburgh area to cash in!"

Comments

600 acres?

[Traxton1]

I've got a spare bedroom. Just send me 2 or 3 would you?

Battlebots anyone?

[NeMon'ess]

Just one day a year, could Battlebots fans please use those 600 acres? I'd really like to see how far Nightmare's blade sends shrapnel.

Re:Battlebots anyone?

[t0qer]

Screw those puny battlebots.

I want to see a schoolbus powered by twin GE turbojet engines and a giant rotating blade go against a garbage truck with big ass pinchers.

I think I would actually pay to see it on PPV.

--toq

Battlebots & Dr. Richard Wallace

[T-Kir]

This immediately made me think of the interview Dr. Richard Wallace and his comment:

Q: How many Carnegie Mellon Ph.D.s does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to change the bulb, and one to pull the chair out from under him.

...so I guess that should make things more interesting?

and the mayor will be...

[mtec]

Bender!

look for local robot folklore in a decade or so

[circletimessquare]

can you imagine being some hunter or hiker who misses the "verboten! cyborg proving grounds, blah blah etc..." signs and sees one of those things in the woods? just as the military secrecy around area 51 has become a sort of touchstone for all sorts of modern myths about ufos, can you imagine what kind of folklore will develop amongst accidental visitors and curious but uninformed local teenagers about this "area T2" (i guess you could call it that)? ;-P

2012, two teenagers creeping through the underbrush in western pennsylvania, near dusk:

teen1: dude! we gotta get home.. they dug old mines here too deep and let loose shape-shifting metal men from deep in the crust

teen2: no way man, i heard a colony of ants developed sentience around here and are building six-legged attack drones in their image to mount an assault on humans!

teen3, running by real fast: i'm gonna shit in my pants dudes! this cold dead looking thing just told me her name was Grace and wanted to register for the next pennsylvania geocaching association dinner!

5 years after that, they'll make a "blair witch" knockoff in which 3 lost teenagers are presumed to be killed and eaten by long-lost golem men brought to life in decaying blast furnaces and steel mill ruins by 19th century satanists ;-P