Hasta La Gadget!

Robots can do almost anything – build cars, explore Mars, and run through the woods like a monster – but now they can sing and dance and even play songs after hearing their rhythm lines clapped out by their owners. Launching at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, Tovbot is one of the coolest robots you’ll see today.

Tovbot is the brain-child of Gil Weinberg, Ph.D. We interviewed Weinberg in Georgia a few months ago and he told us that he was ready to commercialize and present his robots at Disrupt. Today he launched a Kickstarter for his project and you can pledge $149 to get your own Shimi Tovbot to be shipped later this year.

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The Tovbot is a small phone dock that uses your phone’s processor to move to the music. It contains multiple motors that help it wag its arms, head, and feet. The program Weinberg created also “senses” beat based on clapping and can find matching songs automatically. For example, you can clap out songs like Coldplay’s “Yellow” and it will find a matching tune.

Thanks to smartphone and cloud robotic controls, Tovbot is highly complex yet surprisingly affordable. The robot builds choreography on the fly and can even follow you around the room using your cellphone’s camera.

The Tovbot is a toy but it’s also the future of home robotics. Designed to be like an iPod dock that mated with a Furby, the dock points to an interesting future where robots embed themselves into our daily lives in ways that are unique and uniquely fun. Pop over to Kickstarter to pre-order yours today.

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If you are attending this weekend’s Hackathon – that is if you have tickets and are raring to go – I have some fun news. As we mentioned before, Makerbot will be in attendance with two of their 3D printers and I still have two Raspberry Pis courtesy of Adafruit Industries that will go to teams intent on building small hardware projects.

To recap, this year we’re offering one Makerbot to the team in the Disrupt Hackathon that submits the best hardware hack as chosen by some Makerbot reps. The winner will accept their prize on stage at the end of the Hackathon. While we encourage you to bring your own parts – motors, Ardiuno boards, and the like – we’d love for you to hack on (and keep) one of the Raspberry Pi mini-computers we have available. I’ve already given away two, so hurry it on up.

To request a Pi, remember that you’ll need to bring an SD card, USB keyboard and mouse, and HDMI monitor with cable. We may have some hardware on site, but don’t depend on it. If you’d still like one, email me at john@techcrunch.com with the subject line “PI ME!” and I’ll pick two folks randomly. Also remember that you must already have a ticket to the Hackathon. Got it? Good.

This will be our first hardware hack and because the Hackathon is only 24 hours we don’t expect you guys to build a ten-foot-tall robotic dancing mouse with sonar vision. Instead, we ask that you think more in terms of smaller robotics or kiosk computers for students. However, as we get better at this I expect to see ten-foot mice roaming the halls next year.

Do you have hardware project that’s been simmering on the back burner because you can’t get access to a 3D printer? Come on down to the Disrupt Hackathon and use one of the MakerBots and Raspberry Pis we’ll have on site for anyone to use. Build toys, robots, Arduino cases, or whatever you want and enter the Disrupt Hackathon as an inaugural hardware hacker. We dare you.

The best hardware hack as chosen by the judges wins a brand new Replicator courtesy of MakerBot – a $2,000 value.

What can you do to prepare? For starters, I’ll have four Raspberry Pi boards available for hackers to futz with during the evening courtesy of our friends at Adafruit Industries. If you’d like to get access to one (and to keep one) you must contact me at john@techcrunch.com before this Friday and I’ll choose four hackers at random. You’ll want to bring an SD card with Adafruit’s own Raspberry Pi Linux Disro already ready to go so you can get down to hacking instead of spending precious minutes flashing images. Also check out the tutorials available online for hacking the Raspberry Pi.

If you’re already an advanced hacker, pack up your Ardunio board and bring a selection of sensors and motors. Once we get better at the hardware portion of the festivities we’ll be sure to bring a supply for you all to use, but this year in SF we need your help to shape our hardware hacker best practices. Come ready to build something in 24 hours with a team of strangers and please don’t roll in with a fully-formed multi-armed robot you designed over the past decade (although that would be badass).

I’m looking forward to seeing some hardware hackers at our Hackathon on September 8 and please drop me a line if you have any questions. Again, the Makerbots will be available all night and four individuals will get a Pi to play with so plan accordingly.

May the hacks be ever in your favor.