Subject: I survived SRL's "Crime Wave" show

So anyway, thanks to Probe's heads up, I found my way to the Survival
Research Laboratories (SRL) show this weekend.  They didn't release the
place and time until the day of the performance at midnight and even
then they just said to show up to an intersection in San Francisco at 8
PM and we'd be directed from there.  (this was on their web site -
http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/SRL)  So I showed up, and followed
the crowd to where the performance actually was a couple blocks away and
got in line for tickets.  Once I got into the show, I ran into Golan and
Shelley totally randomly which was kinda neat but not totally
unexpected considering kindred spirits are likely to congregate at such
a performance.

Some background info on SRL (what little I know - see their website for
more details).  They make machines that do neat things, and set things
on fire.  They're currently not allowed to do shows in San Francisco
because the fire marshals don't like them shooting big flaming objects
around their stage - i've heard they've also hurt people in the audience
before by accident (with stray projectiles and the like).  So that's why
there was the secrecy about the location of the show...

So anyway - to the show.

Basically, SRL had a bunch of really big impressive-looking machines
wandering around this abandoned parking lot with a dirt embankment
behind it.  Interstate 80 was overhead thus possibly covering some of
the noise from the performance (and boy was there a lot of it).
Unfortunately, it was hard to see much since the crowd was very dense,
and we were at ground level so it was hard to see over and around some
of the machines and SRL staff and that sort of thing.  But afterwards,
we wandered in as far as wewere allowed to and looked at things a bit
closer.  

So here's a quick rundown on what all was there (undoubtedly better and
more complete info is available at the website but what the hell, I went
to the show and paid my money, may as ewll give my two cents)

A fire tornado thingy - as far as I could tell, this was a flamethrower
shooting straight up at the center of a drum that was rotating with
vanes of some sort on the side to create a big whorl in the air.  The
final effect was that the flame was sculpted into a tornado looking
thing - neat effect.

A catapult - I couldn't really tell how this was powered - whether it
was hydraulic or what.  But throughout the performance, they hurled
various things through the air often landing on other things such as
flaming bales of hay (bale of hay on catapult, then doused in gasoline,
then set on fire, then launched), a watermelon or two, and a couple
other things I didn't really figure out what they were.

A ballista - This had a motorized winch attachment to draw the ballista
back.  They were firing bowling ball type things with some sort of
sparkler firework attached to them so they spit out lights and sparks
and stuff while flying through the air.  In case you didn't know,
bowling balls with protuberances (like fuses) are not very aerodynamic.

A fireworks gun of some sort - didn't really see this - but every now
and then during the performance, I'd hear a blast and over the lot would
come arcing the little lights that you see from fireworks.  Once I saw
the sparks (molten metal?) shoot a bit far and land in the crowd on the
other side - that prolly wasn't cool.

A jet engine - Just a big jet engine that fired out a huge flame
horizontally (like 20 or 30 feet long).  Twas kinda impressive to be 100
feet away and feeling HOT whenever it was on.  As a side question, there
was a ring around the exhaust that seemed to be sputtering sparks - are
these to light the flame?  I couldn't figure out the purpose.

A buzzsaw? - there was something off in the corner of the lot that made
a godawful amount of noise but I couldn't figure out what it was and it
was in the section that we weren't allowed to get to from where we were
after the show.
(later thought to be a V1 rocket engine according to various people who
read this account)

A big robotic arm (10 feet long?) hooked up to a teleoperator rig on a
staff person's arm, such that it moved in whatever way his arm did (his
arm was strapped into one of those metallic contraptions taht looks kind
of like the one-man funnelator except it was jointed and had wires
coming out of it).  Pretty funky - the arm was on a cart that had 2
wheels at the back and a stand at the front so it moved itself by
reaching out, putting the arm on the ground, jacking the stand off the
ground by pushing up, then contracting the arm to roll the wheels
forward.  Twas fun watching the guy go through gyrations to make the arm
move in said manner.

A six legged robot - Very impressive walking robot - thing had to have
been 8 or 10 feet long - pretty big and was walking along just fine.
Kinda nifty :)

Various other robots - there was one with wheels and a
paper-over-chicken-wire bull's head on the front of it that signified (I
think) that it was meant to ram things.

Two Terminator looking robots which were suspended from above and may
have fought or something during the performance but I just couldn't see
them because a bunch of people were in the way.

Some sort of vehicle that looked like a cross between a heavy duty
truck, a jeep, and a helicopter.  The rotors on top didn't look NEARLY
big enough to lift it though - they were only like 10 feet long each.
They were powered by these little blowtorch looking thingies that they
had a hard time lighting but made cool noise when they were lit.  They
ended up only getting one of the two lighted but that one drove it
around just fine at a lower speed.

A coke can Newbury Project - Basically the Newbury Project on steroids
as far as I could tell.  Compressed air powered, muzzle loaded coke cans
(which had the same sort of fireworks/sparklers as the ballista bowling
balls, which the SRL guy was lighting with his cigar before he shoved
the cans into the barrel with the wooden rod) (as a side note, I was
gratified to note they hadn't come up with a good breech loading
projectile gun either), with a couple refinements.  Like laser sighting.
Mounted next to the barrel were two cameras that I think were slaved to
the goggles of one of the SRL people - such that he was looking straight
at whatever the gun was aimed at.  it also had a laser mounted next to
the cameras to illuminate its target for better accuracy and knowledge
of what they were going to explode.  And of course, it had two degrees
of freedom (rotation and um...pitch?  forward backward rocking) which
were both motorized so it was really easy to adjust it to hit whatever
they wanted.  Pretty damn cool.

Lots of random targets and things to be set on fire.  A big (20 feet
tall?) paper (cardboard?  paper mache?) over chicken wire head that they
beat up on lots before eventually setting it on fire, various other
cardboard targets propped up by wood that were shot at, set on fire,
mauled by rogue robots, the usual fates.

Ridiculous amounts of AV equipment - they had spotlights, rock concert
type power speakers, video cameras everywhere.  There was a Mac in front
of where I was stnading where I _think_ they were monitoring their
CU-SeeMe broadcast to the Internet but i'm not really sure.  But lots of
people were videotaping the show and I think they'll have tapes
available eventually.  

That's all I remember I think.  The machines were madly impressive.  The
show it self was kinda lame I thought - possibly because I couldn't see
that well.  It was also kind of frustrating that everything was
happening at once such that it was hard to keep track of what was doing
what - I would have kind of preferred spotlighting one or two at a time
just so that it would have been clear what they were doing.  Lots of
setting things on fire - the entire area was filled with smoke and
gasoline fumes by the end of the performance (fire engine pulled up as
we were leaving).  Kinda short too - only 30 minutes but that's life.  

Overall, it was pretty cool - things we could do if we had the free time
and people that were willing to pay $10 a head to come see us and other
people willing to donate enormous amounts of equipment, time and
expertise to it.  I was impressed that they had so many people show up
for basically no advertising other than their web site - I'd guess on
the order of 1000 people were there but I am horrible at judging crowds.
It was also interesitng just seeing the diversity of the crowd.  There
were college students, alterno-style people, bike dudes in their leather
jackets and crash helmets, and all sorts of other people.  No kids
though - unsurprisingly.  It was kind of interesting - I was woefully
unprepared compared to some of the other audience members - I didn't
have earplugs, safety goggles, breathing masks or any of that sort of
thing :)

Wonder if SRL could use a graduate student physicist...
Signing off, back to quantum I go...

Perlick



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