Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

@media screen and (max-width:400px){ body{ overflow-x:hidden; background:#ffffff !important; } #posts-loop *{ max-width:100% !important; } *{ max-width:320px; } #mobile_includes{ width:320px; margin-left:-16px; } #container{ padding-top:50px; } #cse-search-box { margin-right: 5px !important; } #dickbar { width:310px; } #metadataBox { overflow-x:hidden; } }

The Wrylon Robotical Illustrated Catalog of Botanical 'Bots

Mark Frauenfelder at 4:03 pm Thu, Sep 27, 2012

Kindle

My buddy Barry McWilliams has a kickstarter up for a fun book he wrote and illustrated called The Wrylon Robotical Illustrated Catalog of Botanical 'Bots. He gave me a sneak peek of the book and it's wonderful. He's close to being fully funded after just a few days. Go Barry!

The idea of a fleet of flower-delivering robots has been percolating in my head for a little over a year. The first ‘bot just sort of appeared in one of my sketchbooks, the way a million (mostly bad) ideas do. For whatever silly reason, this idea stuck.

I like the absurdity of it - Robots who delivers flowers. It’s both personal and impersonal (robotical?) at the same time. I like that, with an exception or two, the robots deliver only one flower at a time. What could be less cost-effective or less efficient than sending a robot around the world to deliver one, single flower? But I’d sure as hell do it to impress a girl.

The Wrylon Robotical Illustrated Catalog of Botanical 'Bots

Also: Barry was a guest on episode 30 of the Gweek podcast.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE: art • kickstarter

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

function convosuiteLabeling(){ console.log('convosuiteLabeling'); google_ad_500_code = "<center><iframe src='http://boingboing.net/wp-content/themes/2012/ad_google_rect.html' width='410' height='290' scrolling='no' frameborder='no' style='margin:0;'></iframe><center>"; $('#ad_500').css('border-top', '1px solid #CCC'); $('#ad_500').css('border-bottom', '1px solid #CCC'); $('#ad_500').css('margin-bottom', '20px'); $('#ad_500').css('margin-top', '40px'); $('#ad_500_label').show(); if($('#ad_500').height() < 50){ $('#convosuite_ad').hide(); $('#google_ad_500').append(google_ad_500_code); console.log('Appending google ad code: '+google_ad_500_code); } } $(document).ready(function(){ // convosuiteLabeling(); setTimeout('convosuiteLabeling();', 3000); }); .fm-cs-ad { margin:18px 0px 18px 0px !important; max-width:514px; } ADVERTISEMENT

http://twitter.com/barrymcw barry mcwilliams

Thanks Mark! You’re way too kind.