The Halo Robot
It's already a web legend. The robot said to be building a sculpture of light.
Well, we've seen it, and it's awesome. Straight outta Motown, a robotic arm plucked off the auto assembly line, brought to San Francisco to obey your web commands. When you log into the website rememberreach.com, you can choose a point of light to help create a sculpture that promotes the newest "Halo" game.
The robot comes courtesy of AKQA, a super cool agency brought in by Microsoft to stir things up before the Halo:Reach launch. And it's working. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone onto the website to pick one of the (with apologies to President George H.W. Bush) thousands of points of light. Each gets a personalized message about how he or she has helped to remember those who gave their all for the cause, and their Facebook page lets friends know that they're part of the Halo crowd.
The arm itself is something to see. It's from a German company called Kuka, and was really built for the auto assembly line. It has an LED light at the end of its arm, and as the arm swings around, it points the light at a canvas, which gives you the computerized image. The AKQA team tells us that each sculpture takes 54,000 individual points of light. It's been created over and over again, as people line up to be a part of it. It will last until "Reach" is released on September 14
The game, if you haven't heard, is set to be a prequel to the earlier "Halo" hits. It comes from Bungie, and is made for the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console.
Scott made his mark on the Halo memorial. He's on Twitter: @scottbudman
