It's been a little while since we've cleaned out our robot video backlog, so here you go, a gigantic steaming pile of awesomeness in the form of six more or less entirely random robot videos that we've made a special effort to choose. Just. For. You.

We're onto you, University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering. You say you're teaching your students about computer-controlled electromechanical systems, but really, it's all just one big excuse to host your own robockey tournament every year. You're not fooling anyone, even if you host your matches at night.

It's fairly easy to buy your own camera-equipped flying robot these days. Heck, you can get yourself an AR Drone for just $300. But stepping up to something a little bit more advanced (say, with an autopilot and enough payload for a serious camera) is both intimidating and expensive. A project now on Kickstarter, the popular website that crowdsources funding, aims to take all of the stress out of buying and using a professional flying camera platform, while saving you a pile of money (maybe) at the same time.

Last time we checked in with the Bristol Robotics Lab, in the U.K. (back in 2008), they'd just finished building Scratchbot, a whiskery robot inspired by rats. Since then, they've been hard at work bewiskering more robots, including their latest creation: Shrewbot, inspired by the small (but capable) Etruscan shrew.

Teaching robots to S.C.O.O.P. P.O.O.P. is fine for humans with dogs, but the dogs themselves couldn't care less what happens to their, uh, leavings. What dogs do care about is going for walks, playing fetch, and getting fed, and in an effort to appeal to the canine user demographic, students at George Washington University are hard at work teaching their PR2 robot to be your dog's new best friend.

Remember how we keep on saying that you shouldn't make robot babies? That's because you shouldn't make robot babies. It's a little bit more excusable if you're a professional animator and someone is paying you to make one of these... Things... But that doesn't make it any less creepy.

On Wednesday we wrote about a robotic rescue snake that could be deployed into disaster areas by trained dogs. Georgia Tech has also been working on snake-inspired rescue robots, and they've come up with a new form of robotic locomotion based on a trick that snakes have been using for years, called rectilinear movement.

Image via ALIZ-E Project

We've been waiting for years (decades, in fact) for robots to become integral parts of our daily lives, but it hasn't quite happened yet. We're getting closer, that's for sure, but it's starting to look like it might be our kids (and not us) who will get the full benefit of the forthcoming robot revolution. With that in mind, Latitude Research has collaborated with with LEGO Learning Institute and Australia's Project Synthesis to compile a study of how children see robots fitting into their lives.

You know what's missing in your life? Yes, that's right, a robot that wanders around your house seeking out bad smells and neutralizing them. Obviously there's a huge market for these things, because we saw not one but two of them at the Consumer Electronics Show last week.

Many animals, including some humans, seem to have an instinctual aversion to snakes. Many animals, including some humans, also seem to have an instinctual aversion to robots. Couple that with a (totally understandable) instinctual aversion to running around in disaster zones, and it's remarkable that this robosnake-deploying disaster dog even shows up for work in the mornings.