SGI
02-16-2011, 07:55 PM
"Residents of Detroit have raised enough money to build a statue honoring the city's fictional hero RoboCop.
The people of Motor City rallied around the cause and found $US50,000 from private funding when Mayor Dave Bing nixed the idea.
Bing had asked citizens online for ideas on how to revitalise the city but shot down a suggestion that a statue of RoboCop, the titular hero of the 1987 sci-fi satire set in Detroit, would do the job.
"There are not any plans to erect a statue to RoboCop," he tweeted on February 7. "Thank you for your suggestion."
Bing's rejection sent RoboCop fans into a Twitter frenzy. "RoboCop would never turn his back on Detroit," one user tweeted at the mayor. "So why turn your back on RoboCop?"
Detroit resident John Leonard started a Facebook group called "Build a statue of RoboCop in Detroit", which led to a fund being started on the "crowd-raising" website Kickstarter.com.
Imagination Station, a Detroit nonprofit organisation that cleans up run-down areas of the city, has pledged a spot for the statue in a park it owns if the funds are raised.
As of today, $US51,359 had been raised for the project - the initial goal was $US50,000.
"We're currently discussing how to branch this project and fundraising into bigger and bigger things with a better and better impact on Detroit," the project's homepage creator Brandon Walley wrote.
He said no one in the group had ever made a "giant solid metal permanent sculpture before", but have struck a deal with ironworks company Casey V. Westbrook to take a small figure of RoboCop, have it 3D scanned by lasers and scale its up to a 240cm tall statue."
Would You Like To Know More? (http://www.news.com.au/technology/weve-got-the-cash-now-lets-build-a-robocop-statue/story-e6frfro0-1226007343908)
Somewhere, out there.... an angel has been given its wings.
The people of Motor City rallied around the cause and found $US50,000 from private funding when Mayor Dave Bing nixed the idea.
Bing had asked citizens online for ideas on how to revitalise the city but shot down a suggestion that a statue of RoboCop, the titular hero of the 1987 sci-fi satire set in Detroit, would do the job.
"There are not any plans to erect a statue to RoboCop," he tweeted on February 7. "Thank you for your suggestion."
Bing's rejection sent RoboCop fans into a Twitter frenzy. "RoboCop would never turn his back on Detroit," one user tweeted at the mayor. "So why turn your back on RoboCop?"
Detroit resident John Leonard started a Facebook group called "Build a statue of RoboCop in Detroit", which led to a fund being started on the "crowd-raising" website Kickstarter.com.
Imagination Station, a Detroit nonprofit organisation that cleans up run-down areas of the city, has pledged a spot for the statue in a park it owns if the funds are raised.
As of today, $US51,359 had been raised for the project - the initial goal was $US50,000.
"We're currently discussing how to branch this project and fundraising into bigger and bigger things with a better and better impact on Detroit," the project's homepage creator Brandon Walley wrote.
He said no one in the group had ever made a "giant solid metal permanent sculpture before", but have struck a deal with ironworks company Casey V. Westbrook to take a small figure of RoboCop, have it 3D scanned by lasers and scale its up to a 240cm tall statue."
Would You Like To Know More? (http://www.news.com.au/technology/weve-got-the-cash-now-lets-build-a-robocop-statue/story-e6frfro0-1226007343908)
Somewhere, out there.... an angel has been given its wings.