"Hobbyists started the PC era, hobbyists with dial-up modems created BBS systems and started the internet era, and now robot hobbyists are creating the robotics era."
-Sinclair Donald
Senior Robotics Engineer
Melissa is definitely evolving, and is getting to the point that we can believe evetually robots like this will provide useful service around the home and office. And, we really appreciate Melissa’s builder’s sense of humor and willingness to openly share his ‘bloopers’ and false starts with everyone online as well.
Check out photos from the UK humanoid robot gathering/competiton that was staged concurrently with the UK Micromouse 2009 last weekend. It looks like humanoid robotics is definitely drawing attention and builders on that side of the world.
[via RoboSavvy]
The new Kondo KHR-3HV humaniod robot kit has feet that depart from the popular bathtub design used in older Kondo designs.
You can compare the relative size in this photo. The older bathtub foot is on the left in the package, while the new foot is to the right.
Proportionally, the new feet are larger and not as natural looking - they almost give the robot a circus clown feet look.
That being said, the new robot's expanded footprints should make it easier to align and balance correctly, which will contribute to smoother, more human-like walking and other motions
One curious observation: the new feet have lots of extra holes and servo mounting locations designed in from the git-go.
The bottom (sole) of the foot reveals a huge array of holes, many of which are countersunk for use with mounting screws, and two servo mounting patterns. The foot edges have also been designed for better robot walking providing more of a bevel and clearance for the robot to tilt its foot slightly without dragging or tipping while initiating a walk move, much like humans do.
The top side of the foot shows the holes, and the unused servo mounting patterns more clearly.
Note that the stock KHR-3HV only uses four small screws and nuts to attach the ankle servo frames to the feet. It’s functional enough, however our huge paws are going to find it difficult, and a little frustrating, to work with those tiny parts. We’re not watchmakers… 
Does this indicate that Kondo has a lot of options or add-ons in the works? They had to have something in mind, even if it was only to provide lots of flexibility for future KHR-3HV hackers.
Hopefully there will be some exciting follow-on products that use those extra holes, but we're not going to hold our breath waiting for them to appear.
We were out of the country when Kondo held the 4th Annual KHR Robot
Anniversary celebration, so today we stopped by the Kondo shop to get
some hands-on time with this hot new humanoid robot kit.
Without disclosing any spoilers (we're saving the juicy parts for our
full review) we can say that Kondo has made a lot of improvements and
there's definitely a lot to like about the KHR-3HV.
Kondo is set to announce their latest humanoid robot offering, the KHR-3HV, the third generation in the popular and often ground-breaking KHR hobby robot kit series. The official unveiling will take place during the 5th KHR Anniversary celebration in Tokyo on June 13th/14th.
According to preliminary information from Kondo, the KHR-3HV will feature a slimmer body, improved flexibility (increased DOF?), serial servo communication, easier assembly, and many other improvements based on extensive user feedback. Kondo has become the defacto humanoid robot platform for ROBO-ONE builders and definitely benefits from their guidance and robot battle experience.
Unfortunately we’ll be on the other side of the planet, in San Francisco covering the action at RoboGames 2009 for ROBOT magazine. It’s a real sign of the times that robotics has become so popular that we are frequently faced with schedule conflicts like this.
We’ve often joked about programming our MANOI AT01 humanoid robot to dance like Michael Jackson, knowing full well that it would be almost impossible.
However, two well known robot guru’s here, Dr. GIY and Okamoto-san, put their heads (and hearts) together to create a highly tuned, and no doubt very expensive, MANOI hybrid that can really wail on the dance floor (video below).
They named their new robot “MANOI GO!”, which we’re guessing is a play on words. Of course, the meaning of “Go!” in English is obvious. In Japanese, “Go!” also represents the number 5, and could indicate that the robot costs at least 4X the standard model, which wouldn’t be surprising if they upgraded all the critical servos with the top of the line, high torque, Kondo KRS series.
There are also rumors going around about a major debut for this awesome bot. Stay tuned….
Continue reading "MANOI Robot Builders Take Breakdancing to the Next Level (Video)" »
In just a few short years King Kizer, the ROBO-ONE Champion humanoid robot, has quickly become famous world-wide. A few weeks ago he was in the US doing demonstrations, and just last weekend he popped up in Hong Kong to wow the crowds. The only major robot venue he hasn’t shown up is RoboGames… at least not yet. 
Continue reading "King Kizer Shows Off in Hong Kong (Video)" »
Alert readers probably noticed that we’ve started to post our popular robot videos again. Our old PC had some major problems and had to be sent to an early grave. It took a while to get the new desktop system setup the way we wanted, but now it literally zooms and makes creating videos a pleasure instead of a drag. So much so that in one afternoon we cranked out 11 short videos that we’ll be sharing with you soon.
First, here’s some fun footage we took during the first day setup at the April Wonderful Robot Carnival event.
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