Jed Berk's original Blubberbot was the inspiration for BlimpDuino. It isn't programmable and the sensors don't work predictably, so it just sort of bumbles around, bouncing off walls and floors. But it's lovely to have around and taught us a lot about what to do (use N20 motors and a 54" envelope) and what not to do (complicated and fiddly plastic gondola). We used it as the original prototype platform for BlimpDuino before we moved to modded toys and then our own custom vectoring servo platform.

Anyway, Jed, who is an artist, continues to run art installations with Blubberbot, and they're always cool to see. Make has a full roundup .