Maker

Escape of the Blubber Bots

BERK’S BLUBBER BOTS KEEP TRYING to escape. During an exhibit in an empty cold-storage space, one wandered out the front door never to be seen again. At a recent workshop in Los Angeles, another made a slow break for the back stairs.

These elusive Blubber Bot entities are autonomous robotic blimps. Roughly 3 feet long, their helium-filled mylar balloon bodies are propelled by ultralight motorized fans. Simple light sensors send them in the direction of the brightest light source in view, and a set of bump sensors tells them to turn around if they run into something.

Blubber Bots also enjoy “networking” while drifting around gently bumping into things — an off-the-shelf detector of cellphone signals causes them to whirl around and produce tones inspired by the songs of whales. Wave your cellphone at one to say hello! In a space with a ceiling high enough for a pack, they can drift about almost unnoticed, like a sneaky group of cartoon clouds.

Blubber Bots are one of Jed Berk’s several projects inspired by natural life forms, which he calls

TransitionalSpecies. These sculptures possess simple behaviors, emulate interspecies communication, and model processes of biological systems.

Photograph by Syuzi Pakhchyan and Sebastian Bettencourt

Jed Berk’s autonomous blimps are on the move. By Mark Allen

42 Make: Volume 12