Monday Mashups: Robot Ranch

Technology is continuously evolving beyond our wildest dreams and the day and age of robots is the present. Soon enough you will be seeing artificial intelligence maxed out at events. Robots will be mixing your cocktails, serving your plated dinners and creating a whole new dynamic and approach to the operation and logistics of meetings, conventions, fundraisers, parties, etc. If holograms, FaceTime and Siri didn't make you feel like you were in a Jetsons episode enough already, buckle up for this revolutionary experience.

With the ever-increasing innovation happening within the robot community, SXSW Interactive brought the first-ever Robot Ranch to SX Create this past weekend, March 11-13, 2016. SX Create presented by Dremel was a three day community-driven event held at the Palmer Event Center that encompassed the entire lifecycle of robotic innovation, notably a perfect home for the Robot Ranch to debut. Dremel reached out for participants to showcase their robots, and share their labors of love with the community and attendees.

This event was an opportunity for attendees to get to know these newly developed A.I. animals in a fun and friendly way. The Robot Ranch showcased a series of robotics companies that brought a selection of their highly conceptualized robots to SX Create. Each company had their own fenced ‘pen’ allowing attendees to get hands on and chit-chat with their creators.

At Robot Ranch, attendees were also able to experience a slew of fun robot-like activities such as building robots at the Craft Station, safely flying drones in designated areas with Drone Wrangling, and the Robot Nature Center where attendees of all ages learned about the basics of robotic engineering. This was a great hands-on event that introduced attendees to robots who can mix drinks, take photographs of event guests, and deliver groceries, among other functions. This experience really gave attendees the opportunity to discover these wonderful creatures and chat with their creators.

So next time you're looking to bring a new dynamic to your event, consider inviting your friendly A.I. robots to help devour the details!