If you saw a cute, helpless little robot that had nothing to do with Skynet,  haplessly strolling the streets of a big city with a simple flag telling of its intended destination, what would you do?

Tisch School of the Arts student Kacie Kinzer wanted the answer to that question, so she created the tweenbot and set it loose in New York City.  In her words, “I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.”

You’d think in a big city, a cute, little robot made of cardboard, some mechanical parts, and a big smiley face could get kicked over, stomped on, or spray painted and would never make it to its intended destination.  The tweenbot is only capable of moving in a straight line at a constant speed, so it is completely dependent on the kindness of passersby to help it get to where it needs to go

As it turns out, people who saw the robot stopped to help it, directing it to its destination of the southwest corner of Washington Square Park from the north east corner.

For videos and information on the experiment, visit www.tweenbots.com.  I can’t help but wonder what would happen if one was let go in Toronto:  arrive at its destination with a Tim Horton’s coffee perhaps?

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