I think you could have a lot of fun with robot fabrics if you could find any and/or designs which are easier to find. I did a quick look at equilter and there wasn't much fabric related but a couple of patterns. One of which was stretching the robot idea a bit thinner and was appliqued Cogs that I thought had a lot of potential but then I don't applique.
I like to put in some pretty subtle jokes and have been thinking about saying something in morse code (dots and dashes) in a border or in sashing rows. Binary a bit more limited but also a possibility, as could punch card code -- all easily googled. It could just look like a scrap quilt but if you knew the secret you could read a message...
I spent most of my working career with engineers, they always wanted to know how many pieces there were so I would include that in the card or label.
My own inner geek has been playing with the idea of a DNA helix in the standard color codes done basically as a bargello to get that double helix shape.
Have you ever looked at any of the temperature quilts? There are a number of different ways of doing them, is a fun google search if nothing else. Basic idea is you color code the daily temperature at a place for a year, typically with the daily high and low. You put those together as bars, each month a set and so forth.