
MoBots
MOBOT was the name given to a Carnegie Mellon University project tasked with exploring the possibilities of incorporating mobile robots (MoBots) into leisure-educational settings, such as museums, where they could lead a tour for visitors and answering questions. Chips, Sweet Lips, Adam 40-80, and Raven represent a range of prototypes developed and tested between 1998–2002.
Courtesy of The Henry Hillman Jr. Foundation
About Chips:
Chips was created as a tour guide for Dinosaur Hall at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to increase the interest of the museum exhibits and to provide informative and entertaining interactions with any museum visitor. Chips was one of the first mobile robots to dock itself to recharge. This prototype created so much interest that a new company, Mobot Robotics, was created.
About Sweet Lips:
Sweet Lips was the second robot created by the new Mobot Robotics company in 1999. This robot was stationed in the Hall of North American Wildlife at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Sweet Lips’ name comes from a fish found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, and this robot continued to advance its navigation and interactive multimedia.
About Adam 40-80:
This robot was created at the request of Elsie Hillman for the PAC she chaired to promote the high-tech industry of Southwestern Pennsylvania at the 2000 Republican and Democratic conventions. Adam 40-80 marked the development of a new style of navigation that was dubbed, “Party Manners,” and a change to web-based technology for its on-screen presentations. Adam 40-80’s name came from being the first robot of this type and it’s the latitude and longitude of Pittsburgh!
About Raven:
Raven was built in 2002 as a distance-learning robot for the National Aviary. This robot navigated using a camera to follow a unique color the human docent would wear. This allowed the docent to concentrate on their presentation to remote classrooms while Raven followed them through the free flight exhibit rooms.