{"id":15151,"date":"2014-08-13T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=15151"},"modified":"2014-08-13T00:46:12","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:46:12","slug":"dirk-the-amazing-robot-tramp-in-action-at-boomtown-fair-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/dirk-the-amazing-robot-tramp-in-action-at-boomtown-fair-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp in action at Boomtown Fair, England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-01.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Busy causing a stir at this year&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/festivals\/boomtown-fair-festival.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boomtown Fair<\/a> was this incredible life size robotic tramp.<\/p>\n<p>His movement and mannerisms were so lifelike that\u00a0groups of people would gather around him as he shuffled past, all debating whether he was human or a robot &#8211; and if he was a robot, how the hell it was done.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-02.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The tramp would look directly at people\u00a0and seemed to respond to what was going on around him &#8211; but I looked around and couldn&#8217;t find anyone operating the robot.<\/p>\n<p>Some folks near me were convinced there was a small human inside. I wasn&#8217;t so sure for a while either.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-08.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>He would occasionally wind up his music box with a spookily realistic-looking hand.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"735\" height=\"414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DVBgGngWZEw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-03.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Perplexed onlookers examine the robot.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-04.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m getting stared at!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-05.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-06.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-07.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Eventually people&#8217;s curiosity would get the better of them, and they&#8217;d start touching the tramp to see if he was actually real.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-09.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-10.jpg\" alt=\"Dirk, the amazing robot tramp at Boomtown Fair, Winchester, England, August 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I found the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electric-circus.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\">website for Dirk <\/a>and discovered he was made by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electric-circus.eu\/htmlenglish\/about.html\" target=\"_blank\">Electric Circus<\/a>,\u00a0a collaboration between inventor Fred Abels &amp; puppeteer Mirjam Langemeijer.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how they describe their creation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dirk is a life-size tramp. He strolls through the streets pushing his rattling shopping trolley.<\/p>\n<p>Dirk is the first free moving robot that is often mistaken for a genuine human being, for the audience it is an interesting encounter that often ends in a startling revelation.<br \/>\nDirk has already had many human adventures in his relatively short life.<br \/>\nPeople use him as a companion to confide in, accompany him for a while or give him a spare coin.<br \/>\nHe even got arrested in a German shopping centre!<br \/>\nHowever, most of the time you will find Dirk surrounded by a curious audience while he entertains them with the music of his hundred-year old organ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another video of Dirk in action in Australia in 2008, posted by its creators. I think it&#8217;s a marvellous creation!<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"735\" height=\"414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cwX6CuUyeFw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Busy causing a stir at this year&#8217;s Boomtown Fair was this incredible life size robotic tramp. His movement and mannerisms were so lifelike that\u00a0groups of people would gather around him &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[54,17,193],"tags":[452,947,946,949,948,950],"class_list":["post-15151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-festivals","category-photos","category-places","tag-boomtown","tag-boomtown-2014","tag-boomtown-fair","tag-dirk","tag-robot","tag-robotics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/dirk-robot-tramp-boomtown-011.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-3Wn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15151"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15158,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15151\/revisions\/15158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}