JAVIER ARCOS PITARQUE: “CHILDREN CAN PLAY LESS ON THE CONSOLE AND USE THEIR IMAGINATION MORE TO CREATE CREATIONS WITH THEIR HANDS”

It has been a pleasure to chat with Javier Arcos Pitarque, creator of the robots that can be seen in the images that illustrate the article and many more that can be seen on its website. We have talked about the process of creating robots, the materials used, the projects you are working on, the references and the next steps you want to do with your workshop in the Prosperity District of Madrid.

Javier's goal is to hold workshops for children between 9 and 11 years old for them to build their own robot. Javier believes that sometimes there is an excess of games like Nintendo or Playstation and working with your hands and imagination is always necessary and exciting.

Javier, who is an expert in advertising, says that since childhood he likes robots. His hobby came to him since he watched a television series called Lost in Space and that he saw in his native Ecuador (I think it was not programmed in Spain). And is that the main character of the series called Will Robinson had a robot friend, who is Javier's source of inspiration. I commented that this robot or that kind of designs we could see in the movie Forbidden Planet.

Javier's robots do not move. Although some have incorporated movement, with an electric motor that turns some wheels to give mobility or a creation on remote control cars, their creations are static and beautiful to be contemplated and enjoyed. They are evocative and full of details that he himself chains with care and patience. His creations are thoughtful and worked although the explosion of creativity is in his ability to see robots in many materials and objects that he collects and classifies while waiting to be assembled in the final design.

His creations evoke the times in which things were built with hands, working materials and using a lot of trade. His creations are a tribute to those ways of working and building. It is the imagination, passion and enthusiasm in his work that achieves an attractive, spectacular and classic-tasting result.

Javier's inspiration is in the markets, in the repair shops, in the piles of old gadgets in which he is able to see robot heads and bodies. Or legs or arms. Javier chooses the materials he keeps carefully waiting to find the moment to make his creation. In the workshop everything is classified and organized waiting to be used. In the time I was there I could see radios, cameras, flashes, screws, bearings and a lot of material that in Javier's imagination takes shape and body.

He has been making robots for more than five years and recently he has dared to show them to everyone through his blog where he receives comments, congratulations and purchase requests. His creations can already be seen in the Cosmo Caixa store in Madrid, in clothing stores and of course in his workshop in which more than 30 robots of all sizes are exposed.

One of his latest projects is to build a robot of more than 150 centimeters high that will equip a drum body and a scale of those in which we weighed in the 80s. In addition, the limbs will be treated separately demanding the whole lot of effort and work with Sophisticated sculptor tools of large works.

As we have commented His plans are to create workshops for children, accompanied by their parents, in which the previously chosen materials are worked on and a robot is built. The scenario is the one that can be seen in the image, its conditioned work space so that the children can build and take their robot at a reasonable price. Javier explained that his son already designs his own robots, although his inspirations are different and his creations are more modern. Apparently not everyone is biped and not everyone has a human appearance.

Javier is influenced by the fantastic worlds that television taught us in the 70s and 80s and that inspired a new and different world for the 21st century. Although in the end nothing of that happened and we continue traveling in cars, instead of in spaceships and wearing normal clothes instead of those monkeys of a single piece.

We also talk about Javier's inspiration and the search for other references, for example, Theo Jansen, the Royal de Luxe Company of Nantes with its machines inspired by the work of Julio Verne or the performances of La Fura dels Baus.

And here the interview with Javier Arcos Pitarque in which he has taught us many clues to begin in the construction of robots and in developing a hobby that helps to restore the interior order by working materials, creations and getting beautiful and spectacular results. We thank Javier for his attention with us, he has the door open in Peques and Más to come and tell us about his projects and we will be very attentive to the development of children's workshops that he wants to carry out to build robots with the kids.