CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

I'm working on the chapter in my upcoming book on Special Effects for Community and Municipal Theatre called Robotics. It's important to remember the budget in our field and the budget for Special Effects is usually either nonexistent or buried somewhere within "Set Design" or "Props." So: when the script of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" says, during the Fairy Godmother entrance in Act I, Scene 4: "She motions to a chair and it moves across the floor until it is neatly under her and she sits," the director should start thinking "special effects" and the Special Effects Designer should start thinking "Robotics."
The concept of the "quadruped walker" is well-known among roboticists and well-documented on the internet. While the "cheap-and-cheerful" approach usually involves dragging a chair across the floor with fishline, that doesn't give us the audience "gasp" or the "How did they do that?" response that we stage illusionists want to hear. A robotic walking chair is the only way to play this gag and it requires a windshield-wiper motor from an automobile junkyard and some battery holders and a toy radio-control module from Radio Shack. The plans and schematics will shortly be available on the Camelot website and in my book.
Robotics isn't easy. I have catalogued dozens of links to amateur robotics sites with impressive videos and construction techniques, as well as followed the development of Honda's Asimo and Sony's Qrio. I really felt overwhelmed when NASA landed the two robots on Mars and felt that the robotics world had passed me by when DARPA announced the million-dollar prize for the first autonomous robot to make it 142 miles across the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas yesterday. I thought that, with all of the research and talent out there, it would be a piece of cake. "This is too simple, too easy," I thought, so hadn't even bothered starting work on a machine that could do it.
Well, the contest is over. Not one of the 15 companies, universities or private groups made it any further than seven miles! What a hoot... read the results!
The "Cinderella Chair" only needs to walk ten feet. I'm delighted that we, in live theatre, don't have quite the challenge yet. Of course, we also don't get to play for a million dollars.

posted by C. J. # 7:46 PM