I love retro-looking robots. The old covers of Amazing Stories and other pulp novels are full of examples of both evil robots on the rampage and helpful companions on long journeys across the galaxy. I cant put my finger on exactly what it is about clunky, humanoid-shaped robots with bucket heads, spinning gears on their chests, and pincers instead of fingers, but I just like it. Ill take Robby the Robot over David the Android as a personal assistant any day of the week.

Ive built quite a few robots in my day many of them Lego robots but a few have been soldered up in my workshop but none of them have a retro style. Most of them are wheel-based robots with no humanoid features other than maybe the eye-like ultrasonic sensors used for obstacle avoidance. Ive pretty much accepted the fact that the robots that exist in my minds eye will remain there hobbling along in my imagination as their chest lights blink random patterns of nonsense. But then I got lucky and met the team of My Robot Nation at Maker Faire a few weekends back. Now those imaginary robots have an actual chance to see the light of day.

My Robot Nation is awesome. You use your browser (must be WebGL-supported like Chrome or Firefox, but it can be turned on in Safari) to basically select the body parts of your imaginary robot and then drag and drop components such as bolts and panels and tools and other gizmos onto the body. You can color your robot and even create your own custom colors if you dont see what you like. And finally, you can apply stamps (think of them as stickers) that provide a bit more customization. When youre happy with your robots final design, you give your robot a name and select the size (from 2 all the way up to 6 in height) and then place your order your design is added to the My Robot Nation robot database for the world to see. My Robot Nation allows visitors to view its large database of customer designs but does not allow anyone to place an order for other users designs. This means your robot is one-of-a-kind! Only you will be able to hold the actual 3D, full-color robot in your hands.

Its really cool. Let me show you.

First, visit myrobotnation.com to start the process. Click the Make My Robot button in the center of the screen.Next, youll want to read over the basic instructions before you begin after reading the instructions youll see a basic screen that offers up custom body parts such as head, torso, left and right arms (they can be different) and legs or treads. Theres a Randomize Robot button that will allow you to have random robots generated using a mix of all the body parts, but to make the robot really your own, youll want to go through each of the heads, torsos, etc. to find the ones that suit you best. Ill tell you right now that I spent almost 30 minutes playing with different legs, arms, torso, and head. That was just to get the basic shape of the robot I hadnt even started with the color and stamp process yet!

Once I established the basic shape for Bruzer (the name of my robot) I selected the Parts button (represented by a small hex nut). Keep in mind that as you color and add parts that you can still go back and change basic body parts at any time. The Parts options are really amazing. There are eight different categories (they work like menus along the top of the Parts window) including Visors & Widgets, Robot Eyes, and Pipes & Circuits. Again, I probably spent about 30 to 40 minutes alone just adding small bolts to Bruzers shoulders, trying out different chest grilles, and tweaking the feet and head. (I ended up skipping the Robot Eyes category and instead choosing a three star gear for Bruzers single eye.)

Next came the color application. As I mentioned, you can create custom colors if you like, but I stuck with the basic colors. Clicking on certain key parts will apply color to only a portion of the body part. For example, clicking on Purple and then clicking on Bruzers legs doesnt color the entire leg purple. It only colored the inner portions leaving the feet and knees white and ready for another color. The color selection and application tool is very accurate but keep in mind that individual body parts have areas that are linked together, so if you click on a knee for example, it will color the two knees but also the top of the legs that meet the waistline. Its a bit hard to explain, so take a look at the next screen capture and youll see how the waist, knees and feet are color-locked. The inner tubes of the legs are also color-locked. Same with the inner tubes of the arms.

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It’s Time For You to Join My Robot Nation