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David Hall has never seen Miley Cyrus live, but he knows what it's like to be at one of her concerts. The crowds. The screeching. The hands reaching out toward the star.

Every time they walk into a room full of kids, he and business partner David Rawlins experience just that, along with questions like:

"Where do you come from?"

"What are you made out of?"

"Are you real?"

The duo are not teenyboppers. However, they are the creators of Number Nine, a machine that looks like something straight out of "Transformers."

And when they slip into the robot costume, the kids, and even some adults, come flocking.

"The real thrill is being around a bunch of kids and seeing the look in their eyes," Hall says. "It's moving art. And I think over the years, we've influenced some people. I've gotten letters from kids saying that they wanted to study science and art because of this. It stokes the imagination."

Number Nine and several other robots in the arsenal of Hall's and Rawlins' company Logan Enterprises play trade shows, festivals and school events. Literally made out of junk, such as old vacuum cleaner hoses, flower pots and popcorn poppers, the machines are bulky but not at all chintzy.

Painted silver with a sheet-metal skin, they stand upwards of 7 feet tall.

A bullhorn on the side conveys a digitized version of the wearer's voice.

Long foam fingers shake hands and sign autographs.

"It's a very impressive outfit," says Beth Lynch, chief operating officer at the Greensboro Children's Museum where Hall works full time as an artist and where Rawlins was recently working a room full of second graders in the Number Nine costume. "The kids are all over it. The first time we had (Number Nine) we were giving away free Ben and Jerry's. But when he came out, the kids right away left the Ben and Jerry's line to go over and see him."

One man's junk

The first thing most people see when they enter the Children's Museum is Hall's wall-sized pastoral scene mural in the lobby.

He has been at the museum for about nine months, having previously worked in the recovery department of Bank of America along with running Logan Enterprises.

His work is on display throughout -- a train painting in the transportation exhibit, a Sock and Buskin (the drama and comedy masks) in the theater and "satellites" made out of old buckets, computer monitors and other discarded items, hanging from the ceiling.

Hall says he's always been a bit fascinated with the detritus of society.

"I'm a big fan of Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and a lot of recycle artists," he says. "And I grew up less than two miles from D.H. Griffin, which is one of the largest wrecking yards in the Southeast. I grew up walking through their junkyards, looking for parts.

"Having a junkyard so close to me -- that was very influential. Anytime on Saturday I was down there looking for lightweight aluminum pieces and junk stuff."

I, robot

He fashioned his first robot out of two-liter bottles, football equipment and plastic buckets for a senior thesis project at East Carolina University in 1985.

Rawlins, a childhood friend and freelance artist, recalls the first time he saw Hall's creation out in public while on a visit to ECU, which he later attended.

"It was on Halloween. And it was amazing watching him walk around in downtown Greenville with this. Every time he got to an intersection everybody would just stop, look at him and applause would break out. So the next day, while driving home, I told myself, 'Next year, I'm going to have one.'"

Rawlins' cardboard creation wasn't quite as durable as Hall's, but in 1988, finding a dearth of jobs in the art field, they decided to go into business together.

Hall built a few more robots and even some spaceshiplike set pieces and they began doing trade shows, corporate events and commercials.

In 1989 they went to Orlando and demonstrated the machines for Disney. Over the next several years the duo worked about 15 shows for the company and even appeared in costume alongside Mickey Mouse.

Today, to stay close to their families, they work mostly in North Carolina and charge about $800 for a full day's work, though they have a sliding scale for nonprofit groups.

In addition to the robots, the company also has several "soft" characters made out of fabric including a giant Elvis with a fiberglass head that Rawlins designed.

"If Graceland had a character like Mickey Mouse or Goofy, this is what it would look like," Rawlins says. "Sometimes when we do a lot of shows close together, I'll forget what costume I'm in and I'll be in Number Nine and say, 'Thank you very much' in the Elvis voice. I did that once in Apex and the kid said, 'Hey it's a robot channeling Elvis.'"

Heavy metal

In a closet away from the exhibition area in the Children's Museum, Rawlins slips on a pair of "metal pants" -- actually giant robot legs. Hall helps him put on the metal chest, metal arms and foam-fingered gloves. The helmet goes on last.

On the side of his helmet is a flashlight, on his shoulder what appears to be an old headlight and if one looks closely, they might be able to spot a clock face under some tubing on his chest.

Rawlins walks into the exhibit area, clanging like a couple of trash cans banging together, and awaits a group of second-graders from C.C. Wright Elementary School in North Wilkesboro.

The robot costumes consist of about 16 to 20 pieces. Disassembled, Hall says, they can easily fit into the back seat and trunk of a car.

The costumes weigh in at about 65 pounds and with assistance take about 20 minutes to put on.

Wearing them takes a little getting used to, but the helmet has cooling fans and Hall and Rawlins say they usually feel comfortable inside.

"It does take some strength because of all the weight," Hall says. "The robots, because they're so big, you sometimes have to tighten down a little bit because if there's an inch of movement on your behalf, on the exterior it's a four-inch movement."

Hall says it took him about a year to build his first robot. Today he estimates he can put one together in about three months.

A lot of his work involves combing junkyards, flea markets and rummage sales.

He has used popcorn poppers for visors, kitty litter boxes for shoulders and dog bowls for the sides of feet.

"The trick is to break everything down," he says. "For example a golf tube can become a piston.

"You're also laying out thousands of pieces of things so you get to pick like a buffet what you want -- parts of old toasters, coffee pots, lamps. And then you go to Radio Shack or one of your electronics stores and you dress it up.

"You tie it all together, put in your cabling, your lights, your sound, your voice. (It) may look expensive, (it) may look complicated, but (it's) anything but. (It's) just basically metal fabrication and plastic fabrication."

Love potion No. 9

When the second-graders see Number Nine they rush over, run their hands along the sheet metal and even tug at some chains in the back.

Rawlins tells them to put their hands up and sway their hips, proceeding to demonstrate.

Hall stands nearby with a handful of glossy black-and-white pictures of the robot and a blue marker with a giant handle attached that Rawlins uses to sign autographs while in costume.

"I was kind of scared at first," says 7-year-old Ally Lowe, who grabbed on to her mother's leg when she first saw Number Nine. "But I thought he was pretty cool."

"He looks like the dude on 'Halo 3' on my Xbox," says 7-year-old Alex Parker, referring to the game's character called Master Chief.

This crowd was especially ferocious, and one of the kids pulled off one of Number Nine's fingers. But Hall says that should be easy to fix.

"I've been in shopping malls where I had to have a police escort to get out," Hall says. "I've been places where there are 75, 100 kids surrounding you.

"You're not a rock star, nobody knows who you are. It's not you they're looking at, it's the machine. But there is a certain sense of fun and mystery being the man behind the curtain."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com