2012 Robot Hall of Fame inductees

The Robot Hall of Fame at Carnegie Mellon Science Center in Pittsburgh inducted four new robots into its ranks last night.  More than 17,000 people voted to elect this year’s winners.

In the Education & Consumer category, the inductee elected was NAO by Aldebaran Robotics (about which we’ve written before).  NAO was also the only non-American bot elected this year (by, granted, a mostly American electorate).

The Entertainment category was won by WALL-E, the lovable mute robot from the 2008 Disney/Pixar film.

In the Industrial & Service category, iRobot‘s PackBot was inducted.  This is a military robot designed for bomb disposal, inspection, and other dangerous tasks.

Finally, in the Research category, voters honored BigDog by Boston Dynamics.  This is the scary but highly capable quadruped that will probably be the last thing you see when the robot uprising comes.

Congratulations to all the winners, and kudos to Carnegie Mellon for bringing robots the attention they deserve.  For more details, see the official press release.