Robots & Monsters: the charitable organization

These are all from a cool crowd-sourcing project started by Joe Alterio and his wife in 2007. After that first round, Robots + Monsters (archived at http://robotsandmonsters.org) went gone on to raise money for great causes like the SF AIDS Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Water.org, and Medecins Sans Frontieres. Over 5 years, they created about 650 creatures and raised over 50K for their designated causes. The idea was lovely. You specific three words (or phrases) that you wanted the artists to use to define your creature. You specify whether it ought to be a robot or a monster. I participated in four of the campaigns. All robots. In the first one, 2007, I asked for 3 drawings that each symbolized one portion of my adopted Chinese name, which translates as "high-ranking judge of talent." In the 2008 campaign, I asked for 9 drawings, 3 each for various Chinese cultural symbols. In the 2009 campaign, I went for the seasons of the year with Chinese allusions. And in the 2011 campaign, I asked for 12 drawings, each representing the standard, modern Chinese zodiac.