AWEBOT is a strange, creature-like mobile artwork roaming the streets of Philadelphia. Unlike the delivery robots it resembles, it carries no groceries, meals or packages. Its purpose is to surprise passersby and spark curiosity and connection.
The Philadelphia arts organization Ministry of Awe created it with artist Madison Polidoro. Rather than making deliveries more efficient, the moving sculpture turns unexpected encounters with people into its reason for existing.
It looks like the kind of robot that should be delivering something, but it has no parcels to drop off. Its entire job is to make people stop and wonder.
A 12-foot (about 3.7-meter) Halloween skeleton has been transformed into an enormous Chia Pet, with chia seeds growing across its frame. It scales up the idea of a small novelty planter into a towering garden decoration.
Artist Ali Spagnola made the piece, dealing with structural challenges and adjusting growing conditions so the seeds could germinate across the skeleton. She finished it with decorative lights.
A Chia Pet is normally a small planter. This one is a 12-foot skeleton. Watering your novelty toy might now require a ladder.
An exhibit at NT Tokyo 2026 featured a 'half-human pen plotter,' a drawing machine that deliberately leaves part of the work to a person.
The small XY stage moves the paper while a human presses a pen down and lifts it up. The drawing itself is difficult to see while working, but the user can feel the paper moving through the pen and hear the mechanism.
The creator is Naan. See the 'Naanさん「半人力ペンプロッタ」' section of the linked firsthand event report.
A machine meant to automate drawing still needs a human assigned to raise and lower the pen. The person has effectively become a printer component.
It looks like the kind of robot that should be delivering something, but it has no parcels to drop off. Its entire job is to make people stop and wonder.