(Susan Calvin Robotic Automata Playroom) 2Kon's excellent example was followed by the Paragon committee in giving us publicity and a room for the Workshop for the whole con. They also ensured it was close to the Main Hall where the event was held and was central to the Con itself. Better still, The Robot Workshop was connected to the Chaos Costume Workshop by a door, allowing for much cross-fertilisation between fabrics and sheet metal. Everyone agreed this should be encouraged. This was especially handy as M@ and Miche (Who have been taking a vanful of kit to stock the Workshop for the last three years now) also transported the Chaos Costume material from Hampshire.
A 'Costume/Robot' crossover that bemused many
children was the brass and gold steampunk sculptures Eira and Sms constructed around Tim
Kirk and Sparks' recumbent Trikes. After two days of being told
"No, we really need all these brass bits!" a child
muttered suspiciously "You're making costumes, not
robots". It was later revealed that they were constructing BC
presenters. M@ and Miche provided everything from power tools and a
mountain of polystyrene to a coffee machine. Each new day, Miche
laid out everything with Operating Theatre precision. 'The Gimp
Boys' exploded into the room with "Wow! Power tools!" and
became simultaneously the most frightening and the most safe and
co-operative people there.
We really are doing all we possibly can to stop this happening! Please join our 'Ban This Nasty Heavy Metal Pop Group From Presenting Beyond Cyberdrome' petition. ('BTNHMPGFPBC' for short) Thank you.
SMS. Beyond Cyberdrome Steering Committee.
Hot from the pages of the Convention Newsletter: The A.I. Intelligencer:
We have been told the controversial 'Heavy Metal Östragoth' rock band, 'Iron Feetus' have been booked to 'present' this years 'Beyond Cyberdrome' event. This is an outrage! Do the idiots in power not realise that this is a popular event for children and young women? Have they gone mad? Do we have to subject our impressionable and innocent fans to this open sewer of filth and loud 'music'?
The Acme Intelligencer understands the 'band' plan to sell their notoriously offensive "Asimov is a C-Nut" T-shirts in this very building! Their manager, Mr Magnus Greely, said 'They're good lads and they love their mums".
Something MUST be done before we're drowned in a tidal wave of gratuitous noise and vile language! The AI says "Iron Feetus — No!"
(See centre pages for 'Hot Sprokkette Action' pin-up.)
After controversy as to the suitability of "Heavy Metal Östragoths", Iron Feetus to host a BC event at which children were present (See Paragon Newsletter Article), the 'Anti Iron Feetus' pressure group ('BTNHMPGFPBC') lost to popular demand. Sadly, Iron Feetus failed to front the event as they broke up just before reaching the stage (Insiders report disagreement between Mr Dekker and Mr Tar-King over the colours of a sugar coated chocolate confection). In spite of Tarquin 'Mad Dog' Farquar-Harris' sterling attempts to cover up for the bands non-appearance, it looked as if the Robot Event accompanying the Rock Opera 'Eye Of The Robot' would be cancelled.
In a late interview their base guitarist Muff Tar-King said
"Well, basically, we're different to yer music,
right?"
Happily, at the last minute it transpired that the Re-Gened Prince Albert (Of the Regents Park genetics project) and the frozen head of Queen Victoria (Maintained by a steam-driven device) were still touring the Hotel and so able to preside over the contest. As the strains of a 1977 version of 'God Save the Queen' died away, the Royal Couple insisted upon the audience standing, to be led in a rousing chorus of the original song (With the help of Mr Farquar-Harris, an overhead Projector and lyrics from the Brownie Guide Handbook).
In an interview after the event, Iron Feetus's manager, Magnus Greeley, assured us "Iron Feetus will return but are now committed to studio work on a Royal Family Tribute album."
The two events (The second half involving mousetraps) were
accompanied by military bands ranging from the Royal Green Jackets
to the Royal British Legion.
The event (Described by the Prince Consort as 'Very like our dear Edinburgh Tattoo' and by her Brittanic Highness as 'Amusing') was punctuated by the ever-popular binary cheerleading by Sprokkettes Cal, Julie, Barbara and Sue. These young ladies were attired to the demands of 'Iron Feetus', so it became necessary to shade Queen Victoria's eyes until they were equipped with more seemly… gloves.
The Royal Couple presented the Easter Eggs that stood in for the VC, MBE and MA, allowing the winners to
kiss Her Royal Highness' cybernetic hand. The chorus of
'God Save The Queen' that closed the event was more akin to
the rush to leave a 1960's cinema than Last Night of the Proms
but the remaining members of Iron Feetus linked arms with the Royal
Couple as Mr Dekker (Wearing a Union* flag over his shoulders)
opined "It gets yer right there dunnitt?" .
We are assured that Iron Feetus will return.
*British. Obviously.
Trivia: Tek patched Bazooka's Lego Webcam through onto the Main Screen, in between Gary Strattman's camera output. This not only allowed occasional 'Robot-Eye View' shots, but means that this thing went directly onto the Web ("Oooo!" from audience!).
First Royal visit. First time Fans have sung 'God Save the Queen'. First live broadcast to Stuttgart (Of Mr Dekker shouting "Hello Stuttgart!" at the Webcam, mainly). First time Sprokkettes invaded the Pitch (Due to popular demand). A dangerous and foolhardy action, which we confidently expect to be repeated.
Event presented by Mark Slater, M@, Eira and Sms. As at BCIV, Eira, Mark and Sms acted in a play by Dave Wake the previous day ('20.01: A Teatime Odyssey' So Tek were pretty busy too).
Tim Kirk was under psychoactive antibiotics at the time, and so worked on part of 'Queen Victoria' and lent Tek Support to other folks robots rather than building one himself.
Even the children demanded 'Entrance Sheets' as soon as they came in. (It's working!). First time the VC has been locked in a van outside the event. The massive boxes of K-Nex were used for the Aliens Stole My Handbag Humour/Sf con. Although the boxes were returned by the Gimp Boys at the beginning of Paragon. Tim Kirk, under heavy antibiotics, was far, far too ill to host a K-Nexx Workshop and worked on 'Queen Victoria' and lent Tek Assist.
Video'd by Gary Strathmann.
Taken from the Con Newsletter:
I didn't want to stick around so I don't know who won, but it
was quite good, except that most of the robots had absolutely no
sense of direction. It started with four girls doing a little
dance, then in the first round you had to hit this one robot to
get into the second round. One robot was a remote controlled car
with a robot built around it, there were two giant clouds, a
dark pink Mummy pig and two bright pink piglets, and a K4.5 with
a big pike at the front. That was too sharp, so it wasn’t
used and had a leather cover put on it. In the second round,
they put down a load of mousetraps and you had to avoid them. If
you set one off you were presumed dead. The best one, I think,
was the one with a missile launcher on top of it.
Aidan McNelis (Age 9)
(So, now you know)
"It's not cute. It's
not clever. It has a mind of its own. It's made of MDF
" Construction: MDF. DIY. NFU. Weapons: None. Offensive
capability: Generally offensive. Control: Autonomous (Atmel
Microcontroller brain, infra red eyes, No sense of direction)
Special features: State based cowardice module. By Sean
Ellis
An autonomous lego ramming machine. Shame it got de-activated
mid-match by the gimp, using a cunning "open the hatch and hit
the 'off' switch" manoeuvre. By Gav
Battery. Motor. Gearbox. Wheels. Gaffa Tape. Engineered by "Everyone Arthur Chappell asked for help" (And there's no higher recommendation of Chaos Workshop!).
"Story: An Evil Robot Scientist invented thousands of robots to do his evil deeds for him. One of those robots was Venom. One day there was a huge explosion and all the scientists robots escaped but Venom was kept prisoner for years until he finally escaped, killed the scientist and left wanting to wreak vengeance on the other robots". Story by Sacha. By: William and Sacha
This sounded like an ideal
crowdpleaser. Sadly, the 1999 Law Of
Motion came into effect the day before the Con and Andrew
decided not to bring it. Pity. We feel sure that even if it was
stationary, it would have attracted admiration - particularly given
his reputation for exacting detail. Maybe next year…? On the
other hand… Oh dear, this is a Virtual Robot isn't it…
By Andrew Langhammer.
"Now the Earth has discovered how much rubbish there is in
space, they have designed robots with the idea of sweeping it up.
The weapon is for beings who drop litter, who are caught. Please, if
this robot is found trying to get through a wall could someone turn
it round!" And so they did. A splendid example of two
people who had been hit by the 1999 Law Of Motion teaming up to
build something else. Rowan Bell came to the Workshop with a very
smart robot she'd made earlier then realised that she hadn't packed
its batteries. As the batteries were particularly rare and the hotel
was miles from anywhere, Rowan was forced to improvise and it was
here that Andrew teamed up with her. With typical Langhammer
thoroughness, Andrew provided a CD track for this robot. Alas, Tek
were now a little too overwhelmed with other audiovisual demands of
the Con to use it. Next time, no doubt… The Judges have decided
that Andrew's able Tek assist on this robot counteracts his Virtual
Robot negative points. *Whew!* Eh kids? Designed by Rowan
Bell. Technical assistance by Andrew Langhammer (Who was
far too modest to tell anyone, but did an excellent job).
Miche is 29 and married to M@. They are different people.
By Michelle Rosenblum.
Last year, Michelle brought a remote controlled car and built a robot around it. This year she brought a bigger, better remote controlled car and built a bigger, better (???) car around it. Perhaps we should point out: Michelle is 7.
"Like a certain Stockport SF fan, Cyberpunk Pig has spawned
twins! Watch with horror as all items within reach become covered in
an unidentifiable sticky goo and all breakable pieces of memorabilia
revert to their component atoms!" As it says: A cute lil'
piggie… and two little piglets. Very soon the piglets were
exposed to a parent-less hell, the like of which was last witnessed
in Lord of the Flies...
M@ (Who one might almost suspect of composing the write-up) was keen
that this was read out by Mark.
Mark and Elaine are expecting twins within a month of BVI. Mark read
this out with aplomb. Bravo (But, surely, not encore!?)! By
Miche
"It started life as an innocent dessert. Then, one night, a rogue electrical storm overwhelmed its home fridge, causing it to heat up. As it expanded, the crystalline meringue matrix began to conduct electricity and the Mutant Cream Pie had its first coherent thought. That thought was "Kill!" Superficially, a massive meringue with pulsating red lights deep, deep within it… Builder: Nikkums
Continuing their belief that B.C. and S.M. are a code for something else entirely, the Gimp Boys provided three entries in their distinctive 'Black' colour range:
Rollerskate chassis. Power by cellphone.
Battery drill mechanism at front ("Battery drill mechanism, my
*rs*! That thing is 'Grey' Copyright. It's a
'probe' and we know it!). "We're back! A chaos
2000 entry that, for the sake of Humanity, was dismantled and
scattered to 2 corners of London. But it's back. And it's
changed, a bit. More evil and Gimpness has been added. We urge you
to Gimp on down to Damn Fine Con! Evil Evil Evil Sex
Evil!" (Oddly, the crowd started chanting "Gimp!
Gimp! Gimp!" at this point. Perhaps there's something
we don't understand..?).
Damn Fine Con is the 'Gimp
Boys' next Con, held in Ireland. If it's anything like
them, it really is your own affair as to how much outright
propane-fuelled stupidity you can handle. We can only state that
this entry caused Queen Victoria a fit of the vapours and she had
to be vented. We must point out that this practice of entering
robots to publicise your own cons is shocking and we expect it to
cease at once… We could always offer links to your Con site.
Would that put paid to this outrageous and cynical use of an
otherwise deeply serious event? By: 'The Gimp Boys'
('Damn Fine
Con').
James'n Elvis inc "Chip Livingstone" (Dublin Stable). Not Chaos - But built it on Thursday - it was a but chaotic! (Sounds like Chaos to us). "Son of Chip Livingstone, spawn of The Gimp. Brought to you by Sproutlore, the Ethos of Evil Gimpness. A R.C. chassis with 'Livingstone' Mechano upperworks". (It says here… we think...) Words fail us to describe just how utterly unpleasant these things are… Flails were in there somewhere and Queen Victoria was heard to mention: "Spiky!". By: Yes: Those pesky Gimp Boys.
"More Spawn of Satan!! A chaos Entry from the Boyo's. Using similar construction to Gimp 1 but using 'Power Tools - Hurrahhh! And new 2001 materials. Damn Fine Con Damn Fine Con. A fun con with a Twin Peaks Twist. Helicon needs a Cyberdrome" Bless 'em. The delight with which these lads found a rollerblade boot was a moment in Cybernetic History. Within hours however, they'd made it into something truly Ghastly. This time, it had a whip. Do these people not have mothers?! By: Guess. Just ruddy guess…
M@ and Miche took one look at the sealant spray that Nikkums hadn't quite used up yet and… Oooh dear…
(Bug Eyed Mechanoid) (Pyromania Techs) "A Chaos Robot
constructed in 1 hour using the materials provided. Has
sophisticated guidance system based on a distributed processing
algorithm that uses computational resources in the immediate
environment. In English, it relies on
Audience Participation so when it
hits the side, please point it back into the fray. It has no weapons
and relies on exuding a syrupy cuteness to jam its enemies'
cogs" (Rather like a more sophisticated Phlosque Entry
then…). Truth to tell… the cutest thing since Brave Sir
Robin. By Dave Colter - Last seen absailing down a
building, dressed as Darth Maul.
"Construction: Cyber K-Nex. Weapons: Missile Launcher. Offensive Capability: three shots (Of what?!?). Control: Infra Red Remote. Special Features: Not sure myself yet" If Thunderbirds had been sponsored by K-Nex then… well, you get the idea. By: Bazooka
Initially, another cunning
elastic-band powered hovercraft, but it utterly failed to work and
so was decreed to be a 'Settlecraft'. A new breakthrough in
British Engineering! Huzaa! Ok.. It just sat on the ground being
little more than a round green-coloured obstacle or
'Hazard'. By Brian.
"Construction: Lego Mindstorms. Weapons: None. Defensive Capability: None. Control: Autonomous (With Manual Override)" This thing is not only an incredible Robot (Which completely beat the 1999 Law Of Motion, both on the pitch, in linkup with Tek and in Cyberspace) but a first rate event in itself. Sir C-A-B was particularly traumatised when 'Mad Dog' Harris noted that this could well mean BC was being broadcast to Sweden, leading Mr Dekker to crouch down to the robot to shout "Hello Stuttgart!" into its little lens. As (The remaining members of) Iron Feetus observed: "We're not worthy!" By: Bazooka
Also appearing:
By… Oh never mind. "Battle weary and now has a degree in Peace Studies. Observe its skilled use of the Ghandi Manoeuvre". Oh for Pete's sake…
"K4.5 still manages to be a bit pants"
The Mutant Meringue.
Sir Cam-A-Bot.
The Gimp.
Attack Bird. Moon Raker.Venom.
To be held at: The Hotel De France, St Helier.
We had thought the logistics of getting all the BC Kit to Jersey would render it impossible (Hence previous hints that BCVI might be 'Possibly the last for a couple of years') but M@ has been working on this one and Helicon 2 have been very helpful.
So, we can announce that BCVII is go! ...although, alas, M@ and Miche can't make it themselves (Time/Expense).
You expect us to know the 'theme' already?!? You have to be joking, surely!!
The theme is "Build robots and trash 'em".
It's going to be a long haul to Jersey. Anyone who takes a robot over the water is going to be pretty serious about BC.
On the other hand, M@ has already organised with the Con for the SCRAP Workshop to be transported to the Con in an unmarked crate. So the Workshop should be up and running. Probably.
On the other (Other) hand, this may be a cover for something else entirely....
Trust us.
Just build robots and trust us.
It's worked before hasn't it?
Would we ever lie to you?
