Mr. Future

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting episodes Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot; quite possibly the greatest television show ever made in the history of the entire world.

A timeless story of a boy and his robot, it watches like a Godzilla movie crossed with the 60’s television version of Batman. Great campy fun. A man in a giant robot costume slugs it out with rubbery monsters while stomping all over a scale model of Tokyo. A 12 year old boy joins a secret organization of world defending spies, foiling alien overlord plots and villainous beatnik henchmen. What is not to love?

Growing up, this brilliantly/poorly dubbed 60s Japanese TV masterpiece was the absolute high point of my after-school formative years. Did I mention the giant robot? There’s a giant robot.

Well, I’ve never been to Spain, but I kinda like the robots.

Developed in Barcelona by Pal Technology Robotics, the person-sized REEM-B lasts longer, and can carry more weight than any other humanoid robot in its class.

While it has an impressive compliment of software features, from face tracking to real-time environment mapping and navigation, REEM-B’s ability to lift and carry up to 25% of its body weight sets it apart from the tea-tray-carrying Asimos of the world.

It’s also boasts a 2 hour on-board battery life, a first for a humanoid robot this size.

Tired of drug dealers, petty thieves and vandals loitering near his neighborhood drinking establishment, Rufus Terrill built himself some robotic muscle.

‘ He mounted an old meat smoker atop a three-wheel scooter and attached a spotlight, an infrared camera, water cannon and a loudspeaker. He covered the contraption with impact-resistant rubber and painted the whole thing jet black.

“I tell them they are trespassing, it’s private property, and they have to leave,” he said. “They throw bottles and cans at it. That’s when I shoot the water cannon. They just scatter like roaches.” ‘

Link via Robots.net

The four-story fire-breathing car-crushing robot, Robosaurus, will be on the block this January 12-20 at the annual Barret Jackson Collector Car Event / Auction in Scottsdale Arizona.

The beloved engine of destruction and noise has been a favorite in the monster-truck circuit since 1990. Owning it, I’m sure, has been the dream of every nine year old that’s watched it messily dissect a Buick.

So if you bought your own four-story fire-breathing car-crushing robot, what would you do with it?

(A: Anything you wanted to. )

Link to the press release ( Car Buyer’s Notebook via Robots.net)

Bandai Japan just announced a terrific looking animatronic PC-Pal, based on the Tachikoma robot spiders from the Ghost in the Shell anime series.

The Tachikoma will connect to your PC via USB, and coupled with some custom Bandai software will move, talk, play games, record messages, play music and read your email aloud.

It looks like it will be a Japan market/language product only, and will retail for $114 this coming February. I wonder if they used any of Robo Garage’s Tachikoma work in their design?

“Voice Memo” and Minigame Software Pictured Above

Link (via Tokyo Mango)

Three Transformers fans from Nanjing sculpted, welded and bolted this colossal 1300 lb. close cousin of Bumblebee in Jiangsu, China.
Dubbed “X2,” the “life-sized” hand-sculpted resin, metal, and glass robot sculpture took 3 months to create, and cost more than $8,000.

“Every time we saw X2, we felt like he was full of life…and you felt that at any moment he’d start moving.”

The trio plans on building more.

Link (via Little Red Blog)

What if countries described robotics technology in the same manner as, say, the space race?

If they did, the USA would realize that they now have a serious robot frog gap.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a mighty robot frog named Mowgli, capable of jumping more than 19 inches onto a standard office chair.

Just the sort of chair that a sitting government official, or nuclear scientist might use…

Robotic frogs aside, what other technology milestones will we have in a worldwide robotics race?

Link (via The Raw Feed)

Matt Denton of Micromagic Systems (Animatronics and Movie Robotics) has built a fantastic webcam/spider robot, the i.c. Hexapod.

Based on an robot they designed for a Harry Potter film, the i.c. Hexapod tracks faces, reacts to your presence, and if you hold his gaze long enough, he’ll upload your picture to his gallery website. (Anyone know the location?)

Micromagic Systems sells hexapod kits, and some custom animatronic server add-ons as well.

Link - to check out more hexapods in the “Robotics” section.
(via Robots Dreams)

Artbot builder Ranjit Bhatnagar has taught his theremin-playing robot, Lev, to cover Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, as an electro-mechanical tribute to The Ether and Aether Experiment’s brilliant theremin adaptation of the song. (Video Here)

 Update:  Lev also does an …  interesting version of Patsy Kline’s “Crazy” as well.   Video is here.

Little Dog is the latest step in the evolution of the all purpose robotic pack-mule, product of DARPA’s Learning Locomotion Program.

USC professor Stefan Schall, working with Boston Dynamics, is using Little Dog as a software and sensor tool to research methods of negotiate difficult terrain.

Little Dog has been designed to continually evaluate it’s positioning and center of gravity, dynamically adjust its walking pattern based on position, velocity and acceleration. If its footing fails, it learns from it’s mistakes and attempts an alternet route.

Link (via BotJunkie)