Compelling Wood Humanoid Robot (Video)
Yuta Sugiura, a graduate student at Keio University’s Graduate School of Media and Design, wanted to create a robot that would engage people, draw them in, and give them a compelling urge to interact. And, he wanted to design the robot to be as ecologically friendly as possible.
However, unlike other graduate students his age, Sugiura has a secret weapon. He’s been desiging humanoid robots, and competiting at the championship level in ROBO-ONE events for over five years.
You might say that he learned at the feet of the master, his father is Tomio Sugiura the creator of Dynamizer. It’s true that he did gain a lot of knowledge and experience from his father, but Yuta brings his own ideas and fresh, exciting perspectives to the robot design game. He often breaks from the established mold, and suprises everyone with his new, innovative approach.
We interviewed Yuta at length for a detailed article that will appear in an upcoming issue of Robot Magazine. Of course we have to save the details for the article, but in the meantime, here are the basic specs and a video of KITRO in action.
First the video:
- Name: Yuta’s new robot was initially called “RETRO” since it’s overall design is similar to his ROBO-ONE champion robot with the same name. Since the new robot is over 90% wood and the Japanese word for wood is “ki”, his father suggested mashing up the two words to call the robot “KITRO”, and it seems to have stuck.
- Height: 200 mm
- Weight: 450 g (including batteries)
- Frame: Wood
- Battery: 700 mA 7.4 V
- Screws: 40 in total
- Fabrication method: Laser cut, glue
- Total design, fabrication, programming & testing elapsed time: You really don’t want to know… Let’s just say it was about three transits of the Terrian sky by old Sol.
Contest Winners Announced
The results of the BotJunkie robot group naming contest are in and the winners have been announced. All things considered, it was quite an interesting exercise for all concerned.
Some of the unexpected surprises:
- The number of entries easily exceeded 300 and was roughly 3X larger than we originally expected.
- The creativity and imagination of the entrants was absolutely great.
- A few of the suggested names were so obscure that we were forced to look them up in a technical dictionary to figure out what they meant.
- None of the judges agreed… Come to think of it, that shouldn’t have been a surprise at all…
- Our strategy of keeping our judging comments as short and sweet as possible in hopes that they would make the first page of the BotJunkie post worked perfectly.
Simple Robot Games: Robot Billards (Video)
When it comes to motivating people, espcially kids and those still young at heart, to really excel at robotics, competitive games are one of the most useful tools available. Of course there are many competitions, like ROBO-ONE humanoid wrestling, FIRST, VEX, and others. All of those serve a very useful, and noble, purpose. Still, the level of expertise and investment in both time and money, just to get into the game is not trivial, and is often beyond the means of a novice, especially in small towns or rural areas.
There are, however, simple robot games that can be enjoyed by anyone that can put together even the most basic mobile robot. A good example is Robot Billiards, one of the games frequently played by fans of the popular Wonderful Robot Carnival competitions here.
Define a playing field big enough for the robot to move around a bit. Take 9 paper cups, turn them upside down, and mark the numbers from 1 to 9 on their bottom. Place them around the perimeter of the field in a pattern so the robot has to go back and forth. The challenge is for the robot to knock each one of the cups out of the field in the shortest possible time without falling out itself.
You’d be surprised at how difficult it can be sometimes, and how much fun.
Gundam Towers over Tokyo Bay
P1030077
Originally uploaded by 0taku2.
Otaku2 posted an extensive set of Gudam 30th Anniverary Statue" that's currently drawing large crowds to the Tokyo Bay area near Odaiba.
Recent Comments