Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels closes on Sunday, October 26, 2008.

The collection is inspired by Geismar's interest in antique tin and wooden toys and mid-20th century Japanese film and anime characters. These intricately detailed and beautifully designed miniatures are set against EMP|SFM's backdrop of life-sized robots, androids and cyborgs from the world of science-fiction film and television.

Geismar began collecting robots while designing the U.S. Pavilion at the 1970 World's Fair in Japan. Since that time, he has amassed dozens of robots through visiting specialty shops around the world. The exhibition covers early toy robot figures from the Forbidden Planet-era up through various Voltron and Transformers-type robots. Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels was designed by Pentagram Design.

"I'm proud to be able to show my collection, which exhibits the magic of toy robots," said Tom Geismar. The imaginative creativity of these small sculptural wonders first appealed to me as a designer and eventually helped me to make cross-cultural connections."

Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvelswill feature more than 125 robots from his collection, including two wooden robots specially made for Geismar by toymaker and children's book author, David Kirk. Kirk is best known today for the Miss Spider series and Nova the Robot: Nova's Ark.

"While putting this show together, we had an epiphany about the relationship between robots and children," said Margie Maynard, director of education at EMP|SFM. "The naivete and candidness of robots (in science fiction) make them the perfect companions or guardians for children and likewise children are the logical choice to be the robots' pilots or operators." -- www.empsfm.org