Where are the Female Robot Role Models? - Part 2

Continuing on from part 1, I'll move forward in time to 1982 and a classic Scifi movie in which we have another set of iconic fembots appearing, I refer here to Bladerunner, the robots are in the guise of female replicants, all of the lead 'women' is this movie are robots, and they are all manipulative or deluded, not nice traits.

Pris shown in the clip above is a 'Pleasure Model' replicant, a robotic call girl in a nut shell, both she and Zhora her replicant fembot buddy use their feminine wiles to get what they want, example above when Pris orchestrates the meeting with J.F. Sebastien. Whilst I love the movie Bladerunner, I don't love the way that women are portrayed, again although I like the characters, they aren't good robotic role models for females.

On to 1987 and the Stepford Wives are kind of revisited, with more emphasis put on sex in the movie Cherry 2000. The 80's and 90's were full of similar kinds of movies, one of the ones that sticks out to me is 'Weird Science' where a couple of male nerds use a computer to make the perfect dream woman, after they 'design' what they think is the perfect woman on the computer. They hook the PC up to a 'barbie' type doll via some electrodes, hack in to a government computer system to get more computing power and their efforts create a power surge that creates Lisa, a beautiful and intelligent robotic woman with seemingly endless powers. This one is at least intelligent but oh dear, its really a rather stupid notion!

By the norties things started to improve but I'm still uncomfortable with robots offered by movies like the 2003 movie 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines', I refer to T-X aka Terminatrix a gynoid assassin, on a mission to do what the original Terminator failed to do. This fembot was a cold hearted killer, who is single minded, has no compassion, all she does is follow the directive she's been given, never questioning, never wavering. The 2015 movie Ex Machina gave us Ava, a fembot with artificial intelligence who turns out to be cold, manipulative and murderous to boot, there is a running theme isn't there?

At this point I was feeling a tad down hearted, I want to encourage more females in to the world of robotics, but to do that we need role models that females can proudly identify with. I read an article on the New Statesman website by Laurie Penny "Why do we give robots female names? Because we don't want to consider their feelings" she begins by saying "How we gender robots is not an abstract, academic issue: the link between how we treat "fembots" and human women is real."

I agree, what started out as a simple task for me, turned in to something short of impossible, the running theme is female depictions of robots, are male depictions of female robots and NOT what women want, its hardly surprising that girls don't flock to robotics in droves. Fictional characters aside, we don't celebrate the women of robotics, even the female coders, makers and designers are nameless and faceless and if you try and flag the difference, you're on a feminist crusade! Those in the know, know, those that don't, umm don't. Who is the female counterpart to Bill Gates, there has to be one, but I haven't a clue, is it me being blind or a system that isn't highlighting women in the roles that historically are seen as male?

Penny concludes that "We still have not decided, as a species, that women are sentient – and as more and more fembots appear on our screens and in our stories, we should consider how our technology reflects our expectations of gender. Who are the users, and who gets used? Unless we can recalibrate our tendency to exploit each other, the question may not be whether the human race can survive the machine age – but whether it deserves to."

Pretty sobering stuff, I started out wanting to equally flag masculine and feminine robots and discovered that unless I wanted to show girls a side that I'd sooner they not identify with, I was stumped, I stress that not identifying with those types of fembots I've mentioned above is my personal preference, if a girl wants to identify with a sexbot or an assassin then she can.

I chatted to Simon on the phone a little while ago and I told him what I'd discovered and how down hearted it made me feel. A little later he sent an email with a quote "There's never been a strong female robot in any Star Wars film, J.J. (Abrams) was determined to make BB-8 cute and strong — and female."

What now, wait... BB-8 isn't a male character? BB-8 is female, quick, go back to the second paragraph in part 1 and scratch out BB-8, holy batgirl, I was reeling. How the heck had that nugget escaped me, I went and saw the movie, I have a BB-8 mug, a toy BB-8, and other BB-8 merchandise, but I assumed the character was male! Some men are arguing that she is a he, others saying it should be genderless, hell for once can't we have just 1 cool FEMALE robot!

According to a source from Lucasfilm B-8 is definitely “a she” – and the decision to make BB-8 a she was a deliberate attempt to appeal to the female half of the Star Wars toy market. In making BB-8 female, Lucasfilm want to appeal to girls as much as boys, who have traditionally been the Star Wars fan base.

I mustn't have got that memo, being a female and a fan of Star Wars since 1977 when I first saw 'A New Hope' or 'Star Wars' plain and simple as we knew it then, its never been a boy or girl thing to me, just a case of being a Star Wars fan, which to me is like being a roboteer, its genderless, go figure.

Apparently this 2015 'new hope' in the guise of a female lead robot was "going to be one of the breakout hits of the film.” Hmmm sorry Lucasfilm, great idea but you've kept it a bit quiet, shout a little louder and include more strong female robots to the mix in future. To those saying BB-8 is a male or an it, I see it this way, R2-D2 was the companion to Luke Skywalker, both male, so why can't Rey, a strong female character have a female robot companion, and about bleeping time to?

There have been female robots in movies but to me they don't even have bit parts, they have 8-bit parts, parts which are inconsequential at best. The 2008 movie Wall-E gave us the character EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who Wall-E got a crush on (pun intended), EVE is a robot probe whose directive is to locate vegetation on Earth and verify habitability.  She uses anti-gravity technology to move and is equipped with scanners, specimen storage (handbag) and a "quasar ion cannon" in her arm, so she has sort of cool gadgets, but she's not the star of the movie, but whilst its not perfect, her role is more in line with what I'd like females to identify with than Maria or Pris.

I almost forgot to add Matilda, the Robot Wars house robot, so I now have 3 examples of female robots for the girls that I can talk about during my presentation. Using what I've discovered, I'm going to do my bit to help change the way feminine robots are portrayed. To start with one of the things that we'll be doing with the Young Roboteers club is to develop Andrea Android (no shouting, Andrea Gynoid just doesn't sound right, if it did, we would!).

Stage one will be getting the head, mouth and eyes to function, eventually she'll have an automated body and will, its hoped, be a tour guide for Derby Silk Mill, each group of Young Roboteers will work on each part of the project. We'll be presenting the first stage at Derby Maker Faire in October 2016.

Big plans include motion sensors, so when someone walks past she'll be able to greet them and ask if they want any help or information. She'll be able to interact and offer a guided tour of the museum adding facts and points of interest. A tall order and it may not work out exactly like we hope, but Andrea Android will be something that we hope will inspire women and girls to make and create. The only way to make changes is to be part of that change, create positive fembots, inspire the next generation and carry the robotic baton, it has to start somewhere, what can you do to shape the change?

If you're curious you can find a list of female robots in film, TV and literature via this link.

Where are the Female Robot Role Models? - Part 1

Today I started off doing some research to add to a presentation that I'm putting together on the history of robots for the Young Roboteers club, as we have girls taking part I thought it would be cool to add some female robots to the examples for balance and to give the girls something to identify with. I have to say that I've come away scratching my head and asking questions of myself and the world in general.

I started out making a list of my favourite fictional robots, which are, in no particular order: - R2D2,  BB-8, Wall-E, Gort, Twiki, Huey, Dewey and Louie from Silent Running, Kryten, Johnny 5, Data, and Marvin the Paranoid Android, wait a minute, what... ummm they're all male robots, that reveal made me question what was going on. I know there are female robots in world of science fiction and in popular culture, so why are none of them on my list?

First lets define a robot... The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines a robot as "A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer." In robot technology the word robot is further enhanced by calling a robot designed to look and act like a human, especially one with a body having a flesh-like resemblance to be an android, but it turns out that is a male term which derives from the Greek root ἀνδρ- 'man' (male, as opposed to anthrop- = human being) and the suffix -oid 'having the form or likeness of'.

The OED defines an android as "a robot with a human appearance". The term android refers to robotic humanoids regardless of apparent gender, but the Greek prefix "andr-" refers to man in the masculine gendered sense, so because of the "andr-" prefix, many read Android to mean its a masculine robot that is being portrayed.

So if an android is masculine, it made me wonder what a feminine version is called, and until today I can hold my hand up and say I didn't know there was a female counterpart to an android, did you?

Well there is, and the term is gynoid first used in 1985 by the writer Gwyneth Jones in her novel 'Divine Endurance', the term is defined as "anything that resembles or pertains to the female human form", interestingly the OED has no definition for gynoid. In all honesty looking at the imagery that surrounds the gynoid its not a mantle that I'd want to own or be identified with, most female robots are heavily sexualised or depicted as slaves in one form or other.

There is another term that abounds when describing a female robot and that's a portmanteau of the words female and robot, I refer of course to the term Fembot ::cringe::, its crap but it sums things up and I'll use it to attach an identifier to the feminine robot. That delightful term fembot was first mentioned in 1976 in an episode of the television series 'The Bionic Woman' and was later used in the Austin Powers films, those films put the female robot movement back decades by depicting  fembots as beautiful women dressed in sexually provocative outfits that fought with guns hidden in their breasts :o/ ::sigh::.

Analysing that fact switched the light of clarity on in my brain and showed me the reason why it was that only male robots featured in my favourites list, there are no cool female robots to identify with, oh there are female robots to identify with to be sure, but lets look at them more closely.

In Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, we have the Robot Maria aka False Maria, a robot built to resemble a good woman who lives in a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the industrialists. The most powerful industrialist Jon Fredersen, uses workers in underground machine halls that power his Tower of Babel the pinnacle of this modern, highly technological world.

Fredersen's son falls in love with the real Maria, a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a saviour who will work for a better world for everyone, his father sees her as a threat and orders that his head scientist capture her and turn her into a robot which is then used to deceive the workers, which in the end leads to catastrophe. The image of the False Maria is iconic, but when it boils down to it, she isn't a heroine, she is a robot that I certainly wouldn't chose to identify with, the same for most women I would assume?

Fembots were a part of science fiction before 1927, Hoffman wrote of Olympia (aka Olimpia) in his 1817 book 'The Sandman', and in 1886 the French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam included the fembot character Hadaly in his book 'The Future Eve' - incidentally it was Villiers de l'Isle-Adam who first used the term android to describe robots in his book.

So far all our depictions show the fembot as an object of fantasy and desire, something that is either perfect or dangerous, so lets move on to 1975 and see if that notion has changed at all in that decade, and lets visit the town of Stepford. A town where the wives are disposed of and replaced with replica robots to give the men of the town complete control over their 'woman'... :o/ So no, apparently not!

The women are automated, plastic, and have no free will at all, again not something I want to identify with, they are docile, don't question anything and see their function to be nothing more than to be a thing to please a man. What the hell is going on, why aren't female robots being shown as being heroines, or doing something good in the world? It has to get better right? I'll continue the discussion in part 2.

Ladies That Crunch

The "Ladies that Crunch" group started on the 30th August 2016 after a bit of a whoo haaa re the way some people thought that women were portrayed on Robot Wars, @DrLucyRogers asked the  women of Twitter "Women of Twitter - What is stopping you putting a #robotwars team together pls? Technical skill? Time? Finances? Knowledge? Anything else?"

Within moments women began replying. myself included, citing money, technical skill, worried that they would be in a heavily male environment where they wouldn't fit in and lots of other reasons that meant they didn't get involved with building their own robot, even though they wanted to.

Not very far into the replies Twitter user @kateness asked "Is it worth mapping all our (generic) locations and trying to get teams together that way?", not long after @TeckyBecky another Twitter user set up the "Ladies that Crunch" google map for a "growing group of ladies interested in creating for #RobotWars". I suggested we added some info to the map detailing what each person had in terms of knowledge/experience/skills and Becky added the ability to do that. The idea is you contact Becky via twitter, give her your nearest town - mine is Derby - and she adds you to the map. We started out with just 4 women interested and a few days later there are 12 of us in the UK and a member in Tahoma, USA.

It feels like the start of something, and it would be brilliant if we can connect a lot of people together that can turn their skill sets in to something robotic. The idea with the Ladies that Crunch group is to pool our knowledge and put people in touch that live close by so they can maybe develop a plan that will lead to a robot project. Some ladies want to be on an all female team, personally I want to encourage girls into the world of Robot Wars, but also get them pursuing robotics as a career or hobby.

Some of the women cited not liking the war/fighting/combat/competitive nature of Robot Wars, I can understand that, but it shouldn't put them off doing something robotic, their are plenty of non-combat robotic projects and competitions happening around the UK, so its possible to build a robot for a purpose other than fighting.  Personally I think that some of the ladies are focusing too much on the combat aspect and neglecting the fact that before that 3 minutes in the arena, there is a lot of time and effort put in to the robot. Building a combat robot teaches you many things, it also teaches you a great deal about yourself.

Becky has gone on to create a group where we can hang out, offer each other help and advice and pool our knowledge and wisdom, again contact her via Twitter and she'll give you more details. Myself I'll offer my advice and experience where I can and do what I can to get more women involved with robots in whatever way they want, be that in the arena or building a robot project that could one day revolutionise the world. Being a child of the 1960's I grew up with the notion that girls were destined to do nothing but be wives, mothers or secretaries, and I've fought against these stupid notions from my teens until the current day.

Being part of robot team that consists of male and female I can say that the team works, not just because we're married, but because we both share a passion for the hobby/sport call it what you will, and because we each bring something unique to the team that helps the other one in their role. I do believe a successful team needs more than just a robot, it needs social skills, ideas that cross boundaries and as much support as possible. So myself, rather than all girl teams I want to focus on getting women and girls on teams, get them talking/doing and lose the notion that they're not good enough, that its beyond them and encourage them to bring to the arena whatever skills they have, get involved and live the dream.

I've learnt a lot about electronics, parts and build problems and triumphs, sure not enough to build a robot of my own, but the more you are exposed to what goes on and get involved the more you'll learn and the more fun it will become.

To those being put off by the 'male dominance' factor, I'd like to add that in my experience I think its true to say that I'm a roboteer first and a woman second. We don't have male roboteers and female roboteers, we're all just roboteers, I can't think of many other places where that happens, and wish that all the women worried that they will get sexist treatment could see what happens within the community, the things you read and hear amongst fans and public are not mirrored within the community.

So if you're interested, join the "Ladies that Crunch", even if you don't have engineering skills, you WILL have something that you can offer a robot team, don't be put off by the fact that the 'sport' is seen as primarily male. Women bring a unique set of skills to the arena that some of the male roboteers don’t have, and those skills make for a successful team. #girlscanrobot

Before You Build A Robot: Things to Consider

As a total beginner to the world of robot combat, its difficult to know where to begin, so having been there and done that, I thought I'd write some suggestions for things to keep in mind and offer some tips and advice starting out, it should be pointed out that these are suggestions and not things you have to do, but you may find it helpful.

1) Work Out Your Total Budget - This may seem like an obvious starting point, but its all too easy to jump right in with ideas, and before you know it you've burst the budget you didn't know you needed to have, before you knew you needed it.

Building a heavyweight robot can be an expensive business, you need to consider whether you have access to all the tools you'll need before you begin, if you don't have access to the basic tools required, drills, spanners, screwdrivers etc then you'll have to acquire them which can bump the cost of your robot up considerably and eat in to your budget. If you can't use a welder, don't have electronic skills etc you can pay others to do those things for you, but again this bumps up the cost.

It's possible to build a very basic heavyweight robot for around £500 - 1,000, that said depending on the motors you use, the type of armour you chose to use etc will all influence the cost. If you make a junk bot from spare parts and recycled items and are happy to use materials like wood for the shell then a robot can be put together cheaply. Building a cheaper robot though will not necessarily mean that it will be successful, but it doesn't mean it won't be either, experience has taught me that in the arena anything can happen, the robot equivalent of David can slay Goliath! Equally a robot built out of MDF and wheel chair motors is highly likely to become the robot version of a sacrificial lamb.

2) Consider Size - You may want to fly in to the arena with the biggest, badest heavy weight robot you can build, but as a beginner, you may be biting off much more than you can initially chew. So think about starting with a smaller scale project like an Ant Weight robot to begin with, there are competitions around the country for this weight of robot and they can be made for around £150 (including the RC Transmitter).

Making it more affordable, ant weight is more relaxed and not as competitive, so it makes a good entry level robot, it won't take as much time, its easier to put together, you don't need as many tools and from ant weight, you can progress to feather weight, honing your robot building skills as you go and work towards a heavyweight as you gain experience, again events occur all over the UK for featherweights as well as ant weights so you'd be able to get along to one.

3) Find A Roboteer Buddy - Join a forum like the one at the Fighting Robot Association (FRA), there you can pick up a wealth of information and pick the brains of the roboteers that are active on the forum. Forums like the FRA are also a great way to find parts for sale, sometimes even full robots, there may even be an opportunity to join a team looking for more members.

I'm sure many experienced roboteers would love to be mentor figures, they are a friendly bunch who love to help each other and also people who are as enthusiastic as they are about the sport.
Having a roboteer friend, could not only get you valuable help, it could also get you a chance to get a behind the scenes look at a live event as well as expert help.

If you're a women trying to connect with other potential female roboteers, then getting involved with the Ladies that Crunch group would also be worthwhile, the group is relatively new, but it consists of enthusiastic women who all want to encourage other women to pursue a life in robotics, be that Robot wars or a career involving robots. The expertise level ranges from complete novice to someone who works in a robotics lab, Dr Lucy Rogers, one of the Robot Wars judges is also a member.

4) Discover Your Strengths And Weaknesses - To build a robot its helpful if you or someone on your team has some engineering knowledge, some electronics and electrical knowledge, an ability to use design software like AutoCAD (CAD is the acronym for Computer Aided Design) is useful, as is the ability to weld and know how to use tools like angle grinders, drills and lathes.

If you can't do all those things, do you have access to someone who can and would be willing to help out? The more people you have on your team, the more you can get done and the more people you'll have around you that can make your dream a reality. Keep in mind though that when appearing on shows like Robot Wars, and most live shows, they have a cap on the number of people that can be on a team. In the recent series of Robot Wars, the maximum number of team members was 4, so if you're a team of 8, only 4 of you will get to take part in the event.

I've seen some people say they can code, whilst a useful skill, using code is only just starting to be used in combat robots, Chompalot for example has a sequence on the eye LED's that utilises an arduino to generate different patterns, so whilst coding is useful it isn't always essential. That said lots of roboteers are looking for ways to use code to make the robot do additional things.

Something your team will most definitely need is someone who has people skills, from dealing with material suppliers and potential sponsors to liaising with event organisers and these days interacting with 'fans' and other roboteers on social media, someone has to make sure these aspects of being a roboteer are carried out. It also helps if you're a little tech savvy, enough to organise a website or blog (or both), back in the old days social media wasn't a thing, today its become an important bridge between the viewers an fans and the roboteers.

5) Do Some Research Before You Begin - Compile a list of resources, go to places when you get stuck, need to check your Megahurtz from your Motor Torque, then Google can be your friend, most of the time, there are plenty of guides out there like this one on the Robotic Design Process and this one on Instructables website on How to Design and Build a Combat Robot. What you have to keep in mind is some of the American sites give instructs for American build rules, which can mean different weights allowed, different weapons, limits of weapons or materials. So make sure you know what weights, sizes, allowable weapons etc are pertinent to the country you plan on competing with your robot in.

As well as using internet resources, there are some books out there that will give you lots of really useful information, check ebay or similar for books like Kickin' Bot: An Illustrated Guide to Building Combat Robots which new is a little pricey at around £50 or RioBotz Combat Robot Tutorial, the later comes recommended by lots of roboteers and costs less than £10.

6) Have A Substantial Safety Link - If I had £1 for every time a roboteers dreams and plans were scuppered because the safety link became dislodged, got knocked out or somehow failed to connect I'd be a very rich women! Safety link problems have never been a problem for us, that's down to the size and type of link that we use. I'll do a post on this in the future, when constructing your robot make sure that you don't use a tiny safety link, you'll thank yourself in the arena, size does matter lol!

The purpose of the safety link is to give you the ability to remove all power from your robot by physically removing part of the main power supply circuit if something goes wrong. When the link is in, a robot has power to the drive, weapons etc, once removed, all electrical power to the robots drive and weapons stops, so if something goes wrong, the safety link can be removed to make the robot safe to handle.

There are so many other things to consider, the above are good starting points, I'm sure over time there will be questions which will get answered, but for now that's a wrap, I hope you've found this somewhat useful and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment, if I can't answer, I'll do my best to find someone that can.