His name is Tommy.
He’s a red robot with a square head. His approximate age depends on when someone loses their childlike wonder of the world, according to his creator, artist Leonard “Porkchop” Zimmerman.
Tommy’s been wandering on Broad Street, and if you look close enough, you can find him hanging out in 10 downtown businesses through Bots on Broad, a new public art initiative through the Greater Augusta Arts Council, that kicks off on March 25 with a launch party at Augusta and Co. from 4 to 6 p.m. Bots on Broad is a scavenger hunt downtown to find the 10 fun 8-inch tall robots.
As Broad Street and other parts of downtown are in various stages of road construction, it might be hard for some people to see past the machinery and detours to imagine what the finished product will look like, and that’s where the wonder of Tommy might help.
“When I look through his eyes, everything is new and exciting,” said Zimmerman, who brought Tommy into the world via the sketchbook and canvas nearly two decades ago.
The Bots on Broad project began during the summer of 2025 when a crowd funding request went out and Zimmerman’s brain started working.
Getting these miniature sculptures realized was a challenge for the artist who typically works in a 2D realm. While he often adds mixed media elements into his paintings and his grandmother was a skilled ceramist, he’s never trained as a sculptor.
With technology and the right knowledge of a computer program, he could’ve designed a Tommy to be spit out by a 3D printer, but that required a greater learning curve than he was prepared for and created a dilemma.
“Then I thought ‘what if I built it by hand?’ because that was my concern that it wouldn’t look like I had made them if they were just 3D printed from electronic files. There would be no human touch. Honey, these have human touch all over them,” he said.
He first tried clay and soon realized his grandmother Juanita Zimmerman’s clay ability did not pass down to him.
“They looked terrible,” he said. “There was nothing cute about them. I even apologized to the one that’s half made in my apartment.
Plus, he felt that clay looked too squishy and a robot should look solid, Artist Chase Lanier suggested Styrofoam, which turned out to be the perfect medium.
Each of the Tommy robots is tailored to the business where it’s located. Zimmerman provided a photo of the first Tommy installed, and it provides a big hint to its location. The robot is surrounded by books and enjoying lines from his favorite Shakespearean work
And for those wondering about Zimmerman’s Happy robot, it will be tied to Bots on Broad.
“I have some Happy buttons with Tommy on it,” he said.
While they both come from Zimmerman’s imagined robot land, Tommy and Happy robot have never interacted in Zimmerman’s art until now.
“They were never supposed to be in the same universe,” he said.
But the walls have come down.
So grab a map and search storefronts to find the Bots on Broad.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
