Sexy Robots Videos

Students at Suzuka National College of Technology built an impressively large humanoid robot (video below) for the 2008 NHK RoboCon competition. The super-sized bot is controlled using a master/slave body harness worn by the operator. It seems like all the humanoid builders here dream about creating an ASIMO clone, and then scaling it up to Gundam size.

100_20_Wednesday Originally uploaded by pooh80bohyun.We ran across some great robot illustrations on Flickr created by pooh80bohyun, and absolutely had to share them.Needless to say, we've already written to see if any of the originals are for sale, say - for Christmas presents perhaps.... !8-)

We're a big fan of the WowWee ROVIO robot mobile webcam and frequently discover new uses for this innovative product. We've even started to use it as handy portable web conferencing tool since it's light enough to pick up and carry around the office to give our remote co-workers close up views of new projects. At the same time we understand that new ROVIO owners, especially those that aren't 'geeks',...

How about a robot "Pro-Wres" (professional wrestling) tag team match pitting ROBO-ONE champion robots like Afro and Toku Toku Maru up against Kumataro and Metallic Fighter? Wouldn't that be incredibly cool? Think we're joking? No way. Check out the video of the action below.

Just a simple test to make sure I can post from my cellphone during the robot competitions this weekend.

We never cease to be amazed, and delighted, by the power and immediacy of social networking on the internet. Just a few days ago we posted about a video of a wonderful mechanical heart creation but didn't know who the artist might have been. It wasn't long before several of our readers supplied pointers to the KamiKara Paper Engineering website. The KamiKara website (which translates to 'from paper') has lots...

Invariably when we ask US robot fans what they would do with a robot, their immediate answer is "Have it bring me a beer!". In the Revision3 Systm tutorial video below, Dr. Robot (aka Dave Calkins of RoboGames fame) addresses an even more critical problem - how to protect your favorite beverage with a DIY RFID beer safe!

CIMG7899 Originally uploaded by Tempusmaster. We're always looking for new robot versions and options, so the fact that Hitec is selling a 'Green' Robonova-1 version of their popular humanoid robot caught our attention. We don't recall seeing that particular color option available else where, though anything is possible.

Cliff Annicelli over on the Playthings blog seems to be pretty optimistic that the toy sector will survive and perhaps even thrive as the rest of the economic drops. "... Toys may not have been part of the overall economy's retail sales free fall. In addition to the October “Advance Monthly Retail Sales” figures cited above, the Census Bureau today also released finalized monthly sales figures for September. They showed...

Although it is one of those surprising developments we never could have predicted, the new tie-up between TOTO and Yaskawa Electric to develop a new generation of assisted living robot technology and products makes tremendous sense. Yaskawa Electric brings a strong and well honed history of robotics and automation expereince to the relationship while TOTO, instantly recognizable as one of the leading companies in home fittings including sinks and toilets,...

Kondo, world famous for introducing the world's first hobby humanoid robot kit, as announced availability of their best selling KHR-2HV robot in a new configuration featuring the full functioned RCB3 controller. In addition to the functions of the RCB3J controller, that previously came standard with the KHR-2HV, the RCB3 controller includes the ability to control the motion timebase, faster conditional branching, MIX object independence, improved Jump and Call functions, addition...

The "Open Minisumo Robots Championship" has been successfully held for five years running at the Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland. To accommodate the rapidly growing interest in robotics, this time around the event has been expanded to include standard size Sumo, Line Follower, and Freestyle robot competitions in addition to Minisumo. The event has also been renamed, "Robotic Arena 2008." The fun starts at 10:00 am on Saturday, December...

The Aqua City shopping complex in Tokyo's Odaiba district has to be one of the most confusing and poorly laid out buildings we've ever encountered, so it would seem to be a natural fit for an 'information' robot to give directions, point customers to the appropriate shops, and provide general security. Sure enough, we found this robot on the 3rd floor, but unfortunately no one seemed to be using it,...

Playthings "The business of play", one of the top magazines serving the toy industry, picked "Robots" as the theme for their weekly Product Showcase, giving additional validation to something we've known for a long time - robots are the future, even for toys. The Playthings Product Showcase features robotic toys including Spike (the Ultra Dinosaur), Robo Vacuum (a cute little desk top cleaning device shaped like a robot), HexBug Crab...

We frequently run across interesting designs on sites like Flickr or YouTube, but in many cases there is no information about the original designer. The mechanical heart design (video below) is a good example. The heart design and operation is definitely magical. If anyone knows who the artist was that created this wonder, please let us know.

Another example of the creativity that was rampant at Design Festa over the weekend. It's really amazing how some artists can transform a simple object, like a toy baby doll into something impressive, or extremely scary.

The latest Christina Aguilera music video "Keeps Gettin' Better" is out, and while we won't comment on the music, the production quality, or Ms. Aguilera's performance, we will say that featuring the WowWee Femisapien in the video was a bit of priceless and extremely appropriate casting. YouTube - Christina Aguilera - Keeps Gettin' Better. Thanks to Jen for the heads-up.

Match kid Originally uploaded by tanakawho.One of the artists at Design Festa yesterday was exhibiting characters hand painted on the head of a match. You could purchase them for around 100 yen (US$1).We wanted to ask if he does special pieces - like a robot on a match head, but his booth was to crowded. We'll have to track him down later.

As naive as we are, we did figure out at some point that there really wasn't an Easter Bunny. But, we never guessed that it was actually a chocolate robot producing all those wonderful Cadbury easter treats. It turns out that the Cadbury factories use quite a few process and handling robots, including two Motoman UP 20 bots to demould Cadbury Easter eggs. Chocolate robot for Cadbury.