Robot Party Tricks

When heading in to manufacturing tradeshows of all kinds, for some reason I'm always drawn to the robots doing their little tricks -- sorting pills, moving boxes around, dealing cards. I don't think I'm alone in my attraction because I'm generally surrounded by plenty of other people who seem just as mesmerized by robot arms doing the most mundane of tasks.

So of course any manufacturer can draw a crowd to its booth by making the robot do something even remotely interesting. For example, the Fraunhofer Institute had its Kuka robot drawing people's portraits at the recent CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany.

Of course, the final artwork doesn't hold a candle to my beautiful mooseterpiece that the University of Florida's robot lovingly duplicated at a recent show (was it NIWeek? I can’t remember).

I know they're little more than gimmicks, and there's a whole lot more that could be done with these robots. But I can’t help but stop and watch anyway. What’s the best robot demonstration you've seen at a tradeshow? Is there something that you'd like to see, that might really show off a robot's capabilities?

Let us know!