Your Very Own Ultimate Robot Fighting League
29.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
Go get 'em kid, the future of rock'em sock'em

Ever seen that episode of Futurama where Bender becomes an Ultimate Robot Fighter? You know the one, where he starts out as Bender the Offender but ends up as Gender Bender and gets his shiny metal ass handed to him by the really big Destructor – the twist being that Destructor is controlled by that insect-looking guy who used to train Leela how to fight when she was younger but said women “lacked the way of the warrior” like a complete arse? Well, now you too can be that complete arse.

Welcome to.. usually I would stick the name of the robots here or the toy or whatever but I can’t find it. They’re essentially radio controlled boxing robots. Yes, I know there are plenty of toys like that around, at least two whole other choices, but these ones are unique. You hold the controllers as if you were playing a Nintendo Wii and you box. Punch punch jab punch slap punch. That kinda thing. The infrared controllers have all manner of accelerometers and tilt-sensors that detect you punching movements and translate them straight to the robot, with buttons on the controllers that control moving forwards and backwards. On the robots chest there is a target beneath four LEDs – hit the target and light an LED, light all four to win.

Please, please, please find me where I can buy these in England. For now the only place I can find them is in Canada – and they’re only bloody well sold out.

via WickedCoolGadgets
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When Robots Attack
25.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
Now this is robotics put to good use – preventing greedy people from chomping on your sweets all day. This was built using the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit. It can crawl on its six legs and can see/hear you through ultrasonic and sound sensors before it nips at you with its pinchers or ‘stings’ you with its non-lethal tail. Instructions for the scorpion and other possibilities can be found here.

I was completely unaware that the Mindstorms stuff was so awesome until I found out what possibilities there are and I am now going to have to save up so I can build a laser firing sweet guardian. This one is all laughs and jokes but mine will deal out its own harsh justice. Keep off my smarties.

via BotJunkie
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Robot vs Puppy
24.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
I just wanted to show yous all this video someone thrust my way. It depicts the never ending battle between canine quadruped and quadrupedal robot in, apparently, their nonstop war over territories. Mostly in the darkest corners of utilities rooms hidden in the depths of human conurbations. Or something.

The robot in the video is a RoboQuad, which you can buy for around £60, made by WowWee. It has a load of magical sensors which allows it to detect objects and puppies – such as infrared, sound and the ability to detect fast approaching objects in order to give a flinch response – and gives appropriate reactions depending on what behaviour style you set it. Such as maximum kill aggressiveness (or thereabouts). It can be remote controlled or can run autonomously to guard your dirty washing.

Also, for some unknown reason, it can play techno sound effects. There are a bunch of different robot animals you can buy, but this one is the only one I found having a fight with a puppy. Not that I actually checked or anything. Anyway, amass the armies and conquer (your own home).

WowWee Roboquads
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Sony Rolly – Fun but Pointless?
21.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
doing the robot since, well, 2010

Welcome to the shiny, spinny, flappy, dancey world of the Rolly, a robotic MP3 player. Cute, fun but perhaps a little pointless.

Unveiled this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, this fit-in-your-pocket device is first looks like an egg-shaped MP3 player. However, it is not your standard egg-shaped MP3 player, if there even is one, since it is a robot and it can dance. Whut?! Yes, dance. Using the two wheels around its body it can roll about to your music. The glee doesn’t stop there though, it also has little flappy arms connected to tiny shoulders on each end that it flaps, folds and body-pops for your enjoyment. The Rolly also has the capability to keep you mesmerised by firing waves and particles of approximately 700 different colours warmly onto your retina. All whilst it spews out your rubbish music through potentially tinny speakers as you sit in your kitchen stuffing crisps into your face and clapping manically.

Rather than it having an LCD screen to control your music, or whatever it is you describe it as, you can “simply” spin the Rolly either way to make it play or skip a tune. Hold it vertically and you can adjust the volume with “simple” pirouettes. I can’t figure out how you make the thing stop, but I think you might have to “simply” hold it at a 47 degree angle to the trajectory of Venus in comparison to Mars whilst whistling the theme tune from Neighbours. Backwards.

The Rolly is a 2GB beast, so you can hold around 520 songs on it, but Sony decided it didn’t need to have a headphone jack. And this is why I think it is pointless. When the going price is $229 (only due to be released in spring in the US), I can think of plenty of other MP3 players to spend my hard-earned pennies on that I can actually use in the traditional sense of an MP3 player in that they would have headphones. Saying this, I would still enjoy owning one – after all, you can program it with your very own dance routines using included software and it will even accept music wirelessly through Bluetooth – and cry with joy as I watch it do its thing whilst sitting in my kitchen stuffing crisps into my face and clapping manically.

Sony Rolly press release
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Robot Alarm Clock
17.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
cool robot dude in space

I sleep a lot. This is fact. Another fact is I don’t get up too well and resort to a plethora of alarm clocks. Ideally I would have one more alarm clock, and this is the one I want. And you want it too, even if you didn’t know yet, because it is so grown-up and masculine and will make you look cool. Just take a look at the red robot dude, he is in freaking space! The coolest.

If you want one, grab it here and don’t forget to send one to me too.
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Robovie-nano: A Mini Humanoid Robot that can Cartwheel
11.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
a small robot with big balls

This little dude stands at just 12cm tall and weighs only 575g! Robovie-nano also has a pretty speedy walk, can grasp things such as his lovely red ball and best of all can do a cartwheel, as seen in the video below. And you can actually buy this one NOW! For about £330 , you can grab a basic Robovie-nano, for £360 you get a wireless remote control and for £425 an internal gyroscope/accelerometer is built in too. Just contact Vstone for details on non-Japanese ordering.

Vstone [translated] via Crunch Gear
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Papercraft Robot 2010 Calendar
04.01.10 :: 5 Comments, leave your own!
keeping track of the future

This one is for those robot fans who also like to get busy with their hands, yet find themselves confused as to which day it is – a papercraft robot calendar for 2010! Download the pdf from Sal Azad’s site, alternatively use this direct download link. I’m sure it won’t matter that we’re already four days into the year, so get making and share any creations in the comments.

Sal Azad via ROBOTS DREAMS
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RX-78-2 Gundam invades Odaiba Island, Tokyo
03.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
Screw you, Principality of Zeon

Between July and August last year, Bandai decided it would be a great idea to build a 59 foot 1:1 scale model of the RX-78-2 Gundam from the classic Japanese sci-fi series Mobile Suit Gundam. I agree. However, the only issue is that it cannot go on any kind of rampage since it can only move it’s head, throw out some steam and shine lights at stuff. Saying this, it is still freaking awesome.

The project was completed for the 30th anniversary of the Gundam franchise and built on Tokyo’s artificial island, Odaiba. Since August it has been dismantled and stored in a secret location, perhaps once again to emerge when the robots take over.

Find more pictures and videos at Zack Sheppard’s flickr and some nice night shots at Pink Tentacle.

via CNET
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i-SOBOT kills plastic dinosaurs with homemade weaponry
01.01.10 :: No comments yet, leave your own!
YouTube user Paxshikai has has made a compilation video of his i-SOBOT’s homemade arsenal of weaponry . The cache of “gagets” includes crossbows, bazookas, swords, shotguns, a lightsaber and the incredible rocket punch! He has loads of other strange and incredible videos, including this one of a pretty slow lightsaber fight with an “emporer of the evil”, though I (wishfully) anticipate seeing an i-SOBOT battling another robot in the near future.

If you want to own one, there is an i-Sobot for sale on Amazon for £145 (as of now, if bought I guess there won’t be one for sale, hard luck).

Paxshikai via BotJunkie
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I LIKE ROBOTS

I LIKE ROBOTS

2010: A YEAR IN ROBOTS

About

Blimey, it’s 2010 already, the most futuristic year to have ever happened. And what else exists in the future? Robots of course. So, in homage to our new masters (pending imminent takeover) here you will find a new robot each and every day of 2010, whether they be in pictures, art, videos or other forms.