April 9, 2008   

Carnegie Mellon University will induct four robots into the Robot Hall of Fame this evening at a ceremony at Carnegie Science Center and announce the Science Center as the new home of the Hall of Fame beginning in spring 2009.
The ceremony, featuring actors Anthony Daniels and Zachary Quinto, will highlight the contributions and significance of each of the new inductees ? the Raibert Hopper, NavLab 5, LEGO Mindstorms and the fictional Lt. Cmdr. Data.
In addition to the induction of the robots, Carnegie Science Center and Carnegie Mellon University announced today that the Robot Hall of Fame will have a permanent home beginning in spring 2009 when the Science Center opens roboworld, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive permanent robotics exhibition. The Robot Hall of Fame, created in 2003 by the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, recognizes excellence in robotics technology worldwide and honors the fictional and real robots that have inspired and embodied breakthrough accomplishments in robotics. Each year a jury of scholars, researchers, writers, designers and entrepreneurs select the robots for recognition and induction into the Robot Hall of Fame.
Daniels, who played C-3PO in all six Star Wars movies, will serve as master of ceremonies and Quinto, a Carnegie Mellon alumnus who will play Spock in the upcoming Star Trek movie, will attend on behalf of Data, an android with super strength and super memory that was portrayed by actor Brent Spiner during the 1987-1994 television run of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Also scheduled to attend are Marc Raibert, president of Boston Dynamics, who led development of the one-legged Hopper in his Leg Laboratory, first at Carnegie Mellon and later at MIT. The Raibert Hopper explored principles of dynamic balance that are central to agile movement by bipedal and quadrapedal robots.
Lars Nyengaard, director of Innovation and Education Projects for LEGO Education will be on hand for the induction of Mindstorms, a robotic kit that made robots accessible to the masses.
Todd Jochem, a PhD graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, will speak at the ceremony on behalf of NavLab 5, one of a series of autonomous vehicles developed at the Robotics Institute. Jochem, who later founded Applied Perception, Inc. and is now group director of Foster-Miller, Inc., was one of two students who rode in NavLab 5 in 1995’s “No Hands Across America” tour, during which NavLab 5 steered itself coast-to-coast on public highways.
The four robots being inducted this year were announced last May at the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition in Boston. The induction ceremony at Carnegie Science Center is being held in conjunction with this year’s RoboBusiness conference, which is at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center April 8-10.