Vietnamese junkbot builder

~~17 year old Phan Van Mam~~ 19 year old Vu Van Thang is a prizewinning Vietnamese roboticist who builds beautiful working junkbots from household trash:

- Vu Van Thang, 19, from Thai Binh province has won one of the five top prizes at the National Creativeness Competition for Children and Youth 2009 for his robot made entirely from items found in the trash.

Recycled robot wins top honor (Thanks, Samiksha!)

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Little John

Well, this had me confused. Maybe I need to take up drinking coffee.

The 17-year-old Phan Van Mam (not pictured here, just at the bottom of the linked site) won “the special prize” at the National Creativeness Competition.

The picture used here is of one Vu Van Thang, one of five youths to win first prize in that same competition.

Both of their creative entries happened to be robots. Mam’s is only pictured once, poorly. Thang’s entry has several close-up and detail photos*.

*and reminds me of my 5th grade teacher, who had us make stuff every Friday from junk we were supposed to have brought in all week. Are you out there, Mrs. Mertz? Our stuff never looked this good.
Cory Doctorow

Thanks, Little John! Total brainfart on my part.
KanedaJones

I do not know the level of functionality of those ‘robots’ but they are quite nice, and also reminds me of what my friend Monsterzero makes.

he made..

http://mzbd.blogspot.com/2008/12/cyber-baby-toy-art.html

and..

http://mzbd.blogspot.com/2008/12/sweet-revenge-more-toy-art.html

then helped his little girl make this..

http://mzbd.blogspot.com/2009/03/haleys-school-project.html
Kimrod

Nothing against robots (until they take over) but I’d rather see a picture of “a machine to clean poultry farms by Nguyen Vu Hoang, 15, from Thanh Hoa,” with the advent of bird-flu virus and the proximity to raising chickens, I think this is way more important than a robot.

What exactly will these recycle robots do for mankind….discuss.

Recycle
Green
Inventiveness
One man’s trash, another man’s treasure
Lessen landfill loads (assuming they have landfills in Vietnam)