Contrary to popular belief, the Instructables Robot has not always been a part of the website. As legend has it, one day in the fall of 2006 it rolled out from behind a dumpster in Emeryville after it had a rough night of partying and just sort of followed the product designer into the Squid Labs building. The robot quickly made itself at home, helping itself to parts of the coffee machine and occasionally adding site features to the product roadmap whiteboard when no one was looking.
A couple o…
Show moreContrary to popular belief, the Instructables Robot has not always been a part of the website. As legend has it, one day in the fall of 2006 it rolled out from behind a dumpster in Emeryville after it had a rough night of partying and just sort of followed the product designer into the Squid Labs building. The robot quickly made itself at home, helping itself to parts of the coffee machine and occasionally adding site features to the product roadmap whiteboard when no one was looking.
A couple of times over the years we tried to get rid of it, but the next day we would arrive at the office, and there it would be once more, standing next to our new coffee machine, disassembling it for parts. Eventually we grew to realize that it was there to quietly influence us to build the off-kilter website it wanted for itself. That seemed to be working out for us, so we gave up and decided to let the robot hang around permanently. If it ultimately meant that we could never bring a new coffee machine into the office, so be it. Over time we not only got used to its weird habits, destructive behavior and silent stare, but grew to love them.
There has been a lot of heated debate over the years about the robot's given name and gender. People typically assume it is a he and it has been called everything from Butterball to Gumdrop. For the record, its gender is robot and as far as we have been able to deduce after reviewing its source code, it does not have a formal given name. We just generally call it Instructables Robot. If that proves too much of a mouthful for you, it does not seem to mind whatever name you call it. It will respond to virtually anything by turning towards you and staring blankly.
Instructables robot is quite modest and generally does not acknowledge all of the elaborate homages to it.
That said, we will say on its behalf that we are amazed by all of the ways the Instructables robot has inspired the community over the last 20 years. We are sure that it really is quite an honor to the robot.
And of course, there is always room for one more project. While we are not sure entirely when the Instructables Robot first came online, we decided to throw it a Birthday Party anyhow. Check it out and help us celebrate!
