Mobile Church of Robotron at ToorCamp 2012

A group of Dorkbot PDX Dorks got together on a project to identify the Mutant Savior that will deliver the last human family from the brutal tyranny of the Robotrons.

What? You don't know what Robotrons are? Let me clue you in. Robotron: 2084 is a video game from 1982, when video games were primarily an arcade experience. Yes, you had to leave your house and pay money to play video games!

Robotron is quite an amazing game. It seems simple by every measure, and yet it's very hard to master. I think that's why my group of friends love it so much.

Anyhow, a bunch of us planned to attend ToorCamp 2012, a technology/geek/hacker camp in Washington State. An idea was hatched to create an exhibit at ToorCamp, based on the story behind the game. So the Mobile Church of Robotron was born, in attempt to identify the Mutant Savior, the only being capable of saving humanity from the Robotrons, a breed of "perfect" robots created by humans.

Many Teensys and Arduinos and lasers and fog machines were pressed into service building an altar at which humans would be tested. It was brilliant:

Sadly, we did not identify the Mutant Savior at ToorCamp. But the search continues! Join the cause by reading the church literature, visiting us at a Dorkbot PDX meeting, or contributing to the ball of code that is the MCOR source code repository.

My contributions consisted of the LED sign which showed high scores. I had to reverse-engineer the sign, as the company that manufactured the sign refused to release documentation for the display's protocol. So I replaced the CPU board with an Arduino. I'll write up a bit about the process and publish the circuit board design and software soon.

I also built up a simple light controller for the totem pole erected outside the church. It's based on an earlier controller that I designed for the Make: TV Dispenser Brian and I did for Maker Faire 2009.