It’s true. The future is here. Really. Anything you can dream in 3D can be made real. MakerBot’s affordable Cupcake CNC, a slightly larger than a breadbox 3D printer, will take your 3D modeled dreams and make them manifest. MakerBot’s Bre Pettis, a man who knows how a lot about making robots and dreams come true, gives Irina the skinny on what MakerBot is and how it works.

Episode links: MakerBot, Bre Pettis, Thingiverse, Google SketchUp, Blender, Forkbot, Martha Vader, Maker Faire 2009

O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference is often ground zero for useful and meaningful tech stuff and the geeks who invent them. In 2004, Flickr debuted here. In 2008, many DIY projects bloom, such as Socialbomb, aerial drones, binary LED watches, modular programmable open source gadgets and cheap open source robots. We talk to a few of their inventors, capture a brief moment with Nikita Chrusov of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf and close on a serious note as former AT&T technician Mark Klein accepts the EFF’s 2008 Pioneer Award.

Episode links: ETech 2008, Socialbomb, Nate True, Bre Pettis, Soviet Unterzoegersdorf, monochrom, IPRE, Bug Labs, EFF Pioneer Awards, Mark Klein

If you have any doubt that robots are taking over, can carry a tune and are mean fuckers, then check this video out. Captured! By Robots dragged their creator JBOT to the last show of their tenth anniversary tour here in their home destination of San Francisco. Irina corners JBOT around back of the Bottom of the Hill before the show and tries to find out why he lets his creations torture him so.

Episode links: Captured! By Robots, JBOT, Bottom of the Hill

GETV found its way to Vienna, Austria for the 8th annual Roboexotica cocktail robot festival, conference and awards show organized by the snarky drunkards at monochrom and SHIFZ. Violet Blue interviews some more creators of amazing cocktail bots.

Episode links: Roboexotica, Violet Blue, monochrom, SHIFZ, Jonathan Moore (External Combustion Engine), Gordan Savicic & Leo Peschta (WERP-Bot), Anika Kronberger & Daniel Fabry (Digit Colada & Cheers), David Calkins (Chapek & Tyler’s WaiterBot)

While at RoboGames 2006, GETV RoboReporter Violet Blue spoke with Monty Reed of They Shall Walk about the robotic exo-skeletal suit he developed to assist himself after being paralyzed in a parachute accident. Monty demonstrates prototype 13b for us. Episode links: Violet Blue, Monty Reed, They Shall Walk, Robert Heinlein, RoboGames 2006

Michael Shiloh takes Irina on a trip into the wide open world of Linux robots. Find out how you can make Michael’s little wooden open source robot go, go, go. Episode links: michael shiloh, linuxrobots, hobbyists, robot1, robot2, play with robot, webzine, dorkbot