Kickstarter

Welcome to the ROBOT FACTORY! A cardboard and booze fueled interactive art installation for the Burning Man 2012 Festival. Discard your feeble flesh and be reborn - as a MIGHTY CARDBOARD ROBOT!

If you're anything like me, you have, at least one time in your life, made a cardboard robot costume. Perhaps as a kid: a simple box, some duct tape, and BOOM, you're a fearless, metal man, ready to defend the universe:

Or, perhaps later in life, after reaching the legal age to consume cocktails, you  designed a robot more focused on drinking and gave up on the whole "defender of the universe" thing.

Nothing says "party robot" quite like putting a lamp shade on his head.

It's hard not to agree with the statement that "cardboard robots are kind of awesome"!

We at THE ROBOT FACTORY aim to share the fun and excitement of turning yourself into a mighty cardboard robot with as many people as we possibly can.  

We are going to create an interactive art experience in the middle of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada at the 2012 Burning Man Festival called "The Robot Factory". We're renting a portable office trailer, filling it with everything a person could need to make an amazing robot costume (cardboard, duct tape, dryer hose, hot glue guns, battery packs, LED's, silver paint, tin foil, you name it). Pathetic flesh-bag humans will enter and - using our materials - UPGRADE THEMSELVES, taking themselves to version 2.0! Then we're wrapping it inside an amazing party, complete with cocktails, DJ's, and dancing. All this, in the middle of the desert!

In order to aid this conversion process, we'll need to have plenty to drink on hand, so will be gifting delicious cocktails (essential robotic fluids) from our custom made bar to anyone who wanders into our camp. Once robo-converts are properly lubricated and adorned in beautiful cardboard, we'll offer them a change to tune their new audio sensors and test out their servos on our dance floor, powered by a fleet of amazing DJ's that we have lined up to play.

So it'd go down something like this:

You'll enter the camp between two eight foot tall custom built towers, each one sporting a robot (equipped with a voice changer and a megaphone) berating your feeble fleshy form, commanding you to upgrade yourself. You'll enjoy a refreshing cocktail at an amazingly fun bar, take welcome refuge from the beating sun under a giant shade canopy, and eventually enter a refreshing air conditioned (!!!) trailer where you'll be presented with a massive array of tools, materials and gadgets that you can use to make yourself into the coolest cardboard robot the world has seen. DJ's will blast technological musics for you to strut your stuff and show the world just how creative you are!

ALL THIS - FOR FREE!

For those of you unfamiliar with the event, Burning Man relies on a "gifting" economy- no money changes hands during the event. So we're shouldering the cost of this venture ourselves and giving the whole thing away for nothing. We're renting portable offices, bring in a fleet of generators, buying lumber, constructing shades to fend off the hideous mid-day sun. We're acquiring the myriad of supplies, lumber, fuel, booze, and materials we'll need to make this camp a success. Some 50,000 participants are expected at this years event, many of them newcomers who will probably be a little underdressed. So we need enough materials on hand to ensure that anyone who wants to experience the joy and fun of making your own cardboard robot costume and then strut around the playa with blinking lights for eyes is able to do so. 

We need your help!

We have a list of exciting and fun rewards, we've already invested thousands of dollars in materials and we're running slightly over budget. Your kind donation will ensure this fun, interactive art project goes off without a hitch and on the grand scale we envision. Any money raised OVER our target just means we can make this bigger and better than we planned - more robots. more fun, more booze, crazier structures, the sky is the limit! 

Oh and HEY! While you're here, why not check out FROBOT, the ROBOT FROG Art Car? He's part of our camp too! You can find out more about him here: 

http://kck.st/Lre6GD

Thanks for taking the time to check us out - and thanks in advance for your support!

UPDATE!! - July 9th, 2012: We've received word that our project will be placed at 3:30 and A (Alyssum), with our frontage on A. We're super charged to have been given such an amazing spot!