Power Play patrons may recall last month’s drop-in at the Museum of Unworkable Devices — a virtual and pretty damn funny (www.lhup.edu) “celebration of fascinating devices that don’t work.”

Albert Einstein, it is said, defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.”

Groan inducing, yes — but truer than the blue-soaked dermis layer of infamous ink fiend The Enigma (if you’re not familiar with the tattoo/sideshow icon, he’s basically an R-rated version of Papa Smurf who eats fire and twirls chainsaws). Though other altered individuals obviously operate on a much less extreme plane of body modification, there seems to be a definite link between the ink and the irregular.

It had no arms or legs to speak of; no fleshy, meaty exterior or squishy insides; no heart, no brain, no soul. It was just a protracted steel body, long and spindly, a rectangular “head” at the end, and one glowing sensor. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t sentient. It was a robot.

Rosetta Mission mixes with Maxon, Kim K for one unforgettable photo

Necessity is the Mother of Invention, goes the bromide, but this 3-D printing thing is taking manufacturing to an entirely different — yes — dimension.

It seems preposterous in the whimsical, wireless world of today, but in 1977 cinema’s greatest visioneers came together and decided the pinnacle of robotic technology in the future would be a motorized trash can.

Some of us are old enough to have had say, great-grandparents, for example, who when the occasion arose would casually refer to cars as “machines.” It sounded funny and arcane, and we would snicker under our breath. But of course the laugh was on us; back in the day — 1910s through the 1930s — automobiles were commonly referred to as machines.

Heaven help Mr. Deane were he around today. In our non-stop world of transportation & transport technology, for at least the past decade it is without question the electric car that has drawn most of the attention

University lab's motor eliminates pricey rare-earth magnets.