Mr. Future

Robot Watch has a great article on a new Robo-One competition in Japan, to be held September 6th in Kawasaki’s Azeria “underground city.”

The competition’s goal is to have your robot “Buy things [in] the underground city”, which sounds fantastically sci-fi, post-apocalyptic chic. To accomplish this the robots may use both tele-operational control and autonomous behavior.

In the five minute qualifying rounds, robots were sent around with a shopping basket. Their mission: picking up 3 eggs and a small (robot-sized) t-shirt, placing them in the basket, and returning to their operators.

Needless to say, egg manipulation is extra-challenging for robot hands, and Robot Watch has some excellent video footage of robot-splattering trial and error.

Link (English machine-translated link here.)

Looking for that mid-range robot to bridge the gap between your i-Sobot and a Robonova? Mech-RC is hoping to occupy that niche soon.

Their core platform is a 17-servo humanoid robot with a remote control and a custom set of gui-oriented pc software focused on animation and integration of sensor accessory kits. While there’s only a few paragraphs of background information out so far, it looks like they’ll be offering optional orientation sensors, infra-red “weapon” gaming sensors and lights, and an interface board for additional servos and sensors.

The Mech RC comes in 2 body styles, a basic-black cylon-esque model, and a MechWarrior style “Ground Pounder” (pictured below-left)

The brochure also mentions a “coming soon” education-oriented model (below-right), with MS Robotics Studio integration, wireless BlueTooth connectivity, and an onboard camera. Sweet.

We can’t wait to find out more about this promising looking line of robots. No release date mentioned yet, but you’ll know more when we do.

Link - (via Toyology)

The Engineer reports on a project at Plymouth University that combines computer vision / object recognition, and A.I. learning with human-robotic interaction.

The work at Plymouth is an effort to apply human learning processes to robotic systems, teaching the robot word meanings and object recognition as if it were a small child.

“There will be speakers, a microphone and two cameras in the robot’s head, which [researcher] Belpaeme said will be able to pick out humans in a room, make eye contact, track human gaze and interpret pointing gestures and correlate them with what is being pointed at.

‘We are going to make the robot look cute and we are going to try to trick people into teaching the robot things just as they would a small child.’”

Link (via Ralph. Thanks Ralph!)

An episode of Computer Chronicles (1983-2002) about the Tsukuba Expo 85 has some fantastic segments about mid-80s robotic visions of the future.

At 10:57 We get a good long look at Waseda University’s Wabot 2 playing the organ, with great commentary about robots and society from the late Professor Ichiro Kato.

And at 18:32, there’s a love scene from German designer / futurist Luigi Colani’s Robot Theater. A few years back I saw the robot actors on display at Nagoya’s Robot Museum. Seeing them in motion here just made my morning.

Of course there are other good clips of the Expo’s mag-lev monorail, France’s proto-web MiniTel, and Sony’s first Jumbo-Tron.Colan

Here’s your chance to own part of one of the most amazing tin toy robot collections in the US. The Lesser collection has hit the auction block, and the last of the bids are due tomorrow. Back in 2000, I got a chance to see the Lesser robots at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and it rocked my world. It was the first look I ever got at an original Mr. Atomic, Radicon Robot, Horikawa Space Station… < sigh >

Now everything must go. From a boxed Lilliput Robot, the first mass marketed robot toy, to Hook Robot and a Tremendous Mike .