My DORAEMON Robot To Be Released Thursday
On Thursday (September 3rd), Bandai will be releasing the latest in a long line of character robot toys, “My DORAEMON”, billed as the “21 Century Communication Robot”.
Always a favorite with youngsters and their parents who grew up watching the robotic space cat on TV, the new DORAEMON bot is primarily intended to interact with the user by voice messages, rolling its eyes, rotating its head, lighting LEDs in its nose and collar, and responding to a number of built in sensors including a switch connected to its belly pocket.
It can track objects, like your hand, as they move in front of its face, and also reacts when you pat its head, twist its arm, or pull its tail. Turn off the lights and it closes its eyes as if it’s sleeping. It also reacts to time and temperature as well as verbal commands. The robot stands 165mm tall and weighs in at 360 grams with the CR2032 battery installed.
We have to agree that it’s very cute, and will definitely be a hit with DORAEMON fans. For others, who aren’t already dedicated DORAEMON followers, the 31,500 yen (roughly USD$315) may be a little hard to swallow.
More Details On Jin Sato's New Low-Cost Educational Robot Kit
A little over two weeks ago we broke the news about Jin Sato’s cute new, low-cost, educational robot propelled by toothbrush heads. We were lucky enough to get a prerelease briefing from the Robot Master and now that the product has been officially released we can talk about some of the details.
The initial configuration is the “Ladybug JX-TTM” pictured above. Of course anyone with a little graphic design skill, a color printer, and some scissors could certainly change the ‘ladybug’ to any other character, insect, or even monster you have a personal afinity to.
The new robot kit doesn’t require the use of a PC. It comes with 16 predefined programs, and can be reprogrammed using marks on a paper strip that is then optically scanned by the robot. Equipped with optical sensors the robot can trace lines, wrestle robot sumo style, play tug-of-war, even makes music box type sounds and music. Power comes from two AAA batteries supplying an operating voltage of 2.4V-3.0V.
For advanced users that want to program the robot using a higher level language like C or C++ the company is making a fully functional SDK available utilizing the AVR Studio2 WinAVR (GNU C Compiler).
The robot measures 52mm (L) by 80mm (W) by 30mm (H) and tips the scales at only 50 grams including the batteries. Movement, via the two toothbrush heads, is driven by dual cellphone/pager vibration motors. The robot also includes 4 infrared sensors, 4 LEDs for status display, and a piezo buzzer/speaker.
The onboard microcomputer is a AVR ATmega168 with 16K flash memory, 1k RAM, running at 8 MHz. In addition to the 16 preinstalled integrated programs the user can load 4 additional programs with up to 64 instructions.
The current kit price in Japan is 5,229 yen (approxiamately USD$50). No plans for an overseas/English version have been announced yet, though we suspect it’s only a matter of time.
Japan Developing New Undersea Robots
According to a story reported by Asahi.com, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) is developing special undersea robots in response to strong international competition in the discovery, exploration, and extraction of rare metals on the ocean bottom.
The robots will be remote controlled via cables and equiped with a number of special sensors to facilitate marine mineral exploration research. The larger of the two undersea robots will be 7 meters long while it’s smaller sibling will measure 4 meters and weigh approximately 1 ton.
The robots are designed to dive up to 4,500 meters deep in their search for hydrothermal and mineral deposits including copper, zinc, gold, silver, germanium, manganese, cobalt, nickel, and other rare metals. The robots are expected to go into full operation in 2011.
The discovery and exploration of rare metals and undersea resources has become a top priority for Japan, especially in the face of rapidly growing competitive economies, especially China.
Vstone Robovie-Nano Robot Promises Low Cost & High Performance (Video)
The new Robovie-Nano from Vstone, scheduled to start shipping in Japan later this month, looks pretty good, at least on paper. We’re going to holdback on making any firm judgments until we get the chance to actually evaluate a unit up close and personal, but from what we’ve seen so far, the Robovie-Nano will definitely be a strong low-end, low-cost humanoid robot competitor.
According to its pre-release specifications, the new humanoid robot is 23 cm tall, only weighs 575 grams (with battery pack installed), and has 15 degrees of freedom. The robots servo configuration is 4 servos per leg, 3 per arm, and 1 for the head resulting in a total of 15 VS-S020 servo motors. Vstone also plans to release an option kit to add additional degrees of freedom to the robot, along with decorative body shells in a selection of colors.
Unlike other humanoids that use proprietary battery packs, the Robovie-Nano is powered by four Ni-MH AAA batteries (sold separately). Motions are created using Vstone’s RobovieMaker2 software application that is currently supported on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista (Japanese versions). The robot controller board is the VS-RC003HV and supports a USB interface. The robot also features a standard audio output with speaker.
Projected list price in Japan is expected to be 49,350 yen (approx. USD$500).
Here’s a look at the ‘nano’ robot’s ‘macro’ perfomance:
MakerBot 3-D System Enters Japan Market (Video)
HotProceed Japan, the same company responsible for developing the Blaser Robot Laser Tag system, is set to introduce the MakerBot 3–D Modeling System to Japan.
The MakerBot modeler, sold under the “CupCake CNC Basic Kit” name here, allows developers to create 3–D models of their creations at a very affordable price, and under their own control directly in their lab real time instead of having to depend on more expensive and time consuming outside model creation services.
What the system lacks in precision, it more than makes up for in rapid turn around time, interactive development cycles, and reduced cost, especially for small prototype labs, hobbyists, and hackers. This system will definitely prove popular among the Japanese robot builders and other crafts.
Here’s a look at the MakerBot system (in English):
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