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Science News
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Regardless of tribe, lots of freaks are interested in science. Space exploration perpetually excites many of us; mysteries of biology and psychology affect sexuality; new discoveries in archaeology can shed light on the lives of our Paleopagan ancestors. In the meantime, researchers are pushing the frontiers on cloning and nanotechnology, making the world feel more like a cyberpunk novel every week. What’s a neophilic freak to do, but keep up with the changes?
Science News
- posted 07/04/2008Punk Robots Pogo For Science
A group of scientists and artists working together have built a trio of robots that recognize punk music and respond to it by pogoing. According to one of the project’s scientists, each robot’s brain (consisting of a neural net) “was played lots of punk, reggae, disco and classical and over a period of time the robot has learned to recognise and appreciate the patterns of sound in punk music”. The robots, adorned with spike-laden leather straps, anarchy signs, Union Jacks, and punk band logos, stay in one place on the dance floor, simply pogoing up and down. The linked BBC story includes video of the robots in action at a series of punk gigs at the Institute for Contemporary Arts — a situation one scientist describes as: “real-time signal processing and robotic control in a fairly hostile environment — in a mosh pit with lots of sweaty punks.”
