Own A Piece Of Robot History!
You've seen it on TV, now you have the chance to own it!
Here's a rare chance to buy a really unique piece of robot history. The RoboGames organizers are buying a new combat robot arena, and don't want to see their old arena just sold for scrap, so they have listed it on eBay.
According to the organizers, the arena cost well over $200,000 to build initially, and has hosted fifteen major competitions - Steel Conflict I, CSI: Crime Scene Investigators, Steel Conflict II, Steel Conflict III @ RCX 2003, Steel Conflict IV, ROBOlympics 2004, RC Expo 2004, VMware - VMworld 2004, RoboGames 2005, ComBots Open and 2004 RFL National Championship, ComBots Cup I and 2005 RFL National Championship, Game Designer Conference PS3 Party, RoboGames 2006, Maker Faire / ComBots Cup 2007, and RoboGames 2007.
Of course, you'll need a 50 foot flatbed truck and a forklift or two just to move it. The arena tips the scales at a massive 18 tons, and takes two crews of 8, working two shifts, about a day and a half to assemble. But, if you're really into combat robots, or looking to start a competitive event, this might be the perfect opportunity.
ROBO-ONE 12 in Takamatsu Coming Up Soon!
Matsuda-san wrote yesterday to remind us that preparations are ramping up for ROBO-ONE 12 which will be held in Takamatsu in the western half of Japan on September 15-16th. He was also kind enough to include a copy of the promotional poster (see link below), which we think looks absolutely cool.
To promote robotics as a hobby, sport, and vocation, the ROBO-ONE committee has been staging the even numbered competitions in 'away' locations, while keeping the odd numbered competitions in the Tokyo area. The ROBO-ONE 10 event last Fall was held in Nagai - about 4 hours away even using the bullet train, and getting to Takamatsu for ROBO-ONE 12 will take us roughly five hours as well. Although it requires substantial travel time and expense on the part of the organizers, press, and many participants, we're all happy to do it in order to spread the word, and hopefully inspire some budding robot builders/developers to participate.
Enhancing The Kondo KHR Humanoid Robot Series – Part 1
Our first Kondo robot was Gulliver, an original KHR-1 (not to be confused with the more recent KHR-1HV kit). He's great, and we've had a tremendous amount of fun playing with him, and learning from him. But, seeing all the newer KHR-2HV robots out there playing soccer had us wishing for another robot just so that we could play too.
But, that would cost $$$, not to mention having to negotiate with our better half and trying to explain why we just can live without three, or four, humanoid robots to experiment with. If we weren't careful about it, we might have ended up with only the robots in an empty house...
So, we took the safer, and cheaper path, and swapped out Gulliver's older RCB-1 control boards for a single, and much more powerful RCB3 controller with the latest firmware. But we still needed to address the motion sequence differences between the two robots or we wouldn't be able to use all those cool soccer moves.
’Enhancing The Kondo KHR Humanoid Robot Series – Part 1’ continues
More On The New TOMY i-SOBOT humaniod robot. (Video)
We haven't reported anything about the new i-SOBOT humanoid robot since we mentioned about two weeks ago that it has was officially certified by Guinness as the world's smallest humanoid robot in commercial production. So, we were starting to feel a little guilty and remiss in our duties. After all, a great, feature packed, robot like this needs some attention and shouldn't be ignored.
’More On The New TOMY i-SOBOT humaniod robot. (Video)’ continues
Futaba Robots Invade The US (Video)
We reported just a few days ago that the new Futaba RBT-1 humanoid robot kits were arriving at US distributors, and now some of the first US customers already have their robots up and running, and performing neat moves including soccer kicks and handstands.
Chuck, a.k.a. 'CdRaptor' from the RoboSavvy robot forum, was one of the lucky customers to receive his robot and shared the three video clips below.
’Futaba Robots Invade The US (Video)’ continues
Recent Comments