1st Kondo Land Robot Competition: Tic Tak (Video)
Servos are invariably the most expensive component in robot design. Of course, as you increase the number of degrees of freedom, which typically requires one or more servos for each additional degree, the total robot cost quickly skyrockets. At the same time, you want to optimize the robot's performance and ability.
Leave it to Azusa Amino, a champion ROBO-ONE competitor and designer of the delightful Toko Toko Maru humanoid robot, to come up with a hexapod robot design called “Tic-Tak” (Tic Tac) that only requires six servo motors yet was able to capture 3rd place in the 1st Kondo Land Robot Contest, an extremely challenging steeplechase/obstacle course that defeated almost all of the competitors.
Amino is very active with robotics at the hobby, professional, and academic level. He's traveled all over the world demonstrating his robot creations, including participating in ROBO-ONE Gran Prix exhibitions in Hong Kong and South America.
Kleekbots – Control Lego Mindstorms Robots with the iPhone (Video)
Wouldn't it be cool to be able to control your LEGO Mindstorms robot creations using the iPhone, from across the room, or across the planet, and to see what the robot sees?
Kleekbots is scheduled to release their implementation as a commercially available product early in 2011. The product plans include one-click sharing, free robot build instructions, live video streaming, and it works on the desktop as well. You can sign up to be updated with the latest release schedules and information via their website.
Using the Kinect with Willow Garage ROS as a Master/Slave Robot Control (Video)
Taylor Veltrop explains and demonstrates his Master/Slave implementation of the Kinect with the Willow Garage ROS system to control a Kondo KHR-1HV humanoid robot, including a few surprises. 
The contest description says:
“We invite you to combine an RGB-D sensor (e.g. Kinect, PSDK5.0) with ROS to produce something new, interesting, and fun. It could be anything, from a novel robot control interface to a data-driven art project to pure computer vision. Bonus points if it's also useful (see below). We're offering $8K in prizes. We encourage participants to share, and our rules and judging will reward participants who act in the spirit of collaboration.”
Pretty sweet with $8K in prizes. 
Related links:
1st Kondo Land Robot Competition: Course Difficulty (Video)
I realized last night while talking with some fellow robot builders that the Kondo Land Robot Competition videos so far make the obstacle course look much easier than it actually was. The hazards the robots have to conquer are far from trivial, and the fact that several of them almost made it all the way to the end is a real tribute to the design, implementation, strategy, and piloting ability of their robot designers.
Here's a look at some of the course difficulty:
You need to keep in mind that unlike ROBO-ONE, Robot Sumo, or Micromouse, the Kondo Land competitors didn't have the benefit of past experience, and none of them that we are aware of had the luxury of designing their robot from the ground up specifically for this particular course. Many of the robots were just a little too big for some of the hazards, or their feet couldn't get sufficient traction.
Of course that will change quickly. Now that they have seen and experienced the course first hand, and watched how others fared, they will be back with a vengence. At the 2nd Kondo Land Robot Competition scheduled for late January, we expect to see several new designs fined tuned to successfully navigate this unique robot challenge. Who knows, we might even see a ROBO-ONE style humanoid or two attempt it… That would be very cool.
2nd Kondo Land Robot Contest Set for 1/23/2011
101223 Kondo Land Robot Contest 318
Originally uploaded by Robots-Dreams.
The 1st Kondo Land Robot Contest, featuring a life sized replica of a steeplechase cum video game, was a rousing success, so much so that the company just announced the schedule for the 2nd competition, along with some interesting new twists.
While the basic obstacle course will remain essentially the same with its Magic Wall, Motor House, Wobbly Bridge, and other hazards, there will also be special switches placed around the course. If the robot can manage to push the switches while exploring the obstacles, it will score points towards an undisclosed "special prize" from the company.
Demand from potential participants has been so strong that the company has increased the total number of entry berths to 24, more that double the entries in the first competition.
Related links: RoboSpot Blog Post, 2nd Kondo Land Robot Contest.
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