ROBOTS DREAMS

i-SOBOT's New Steam Tank (Video)

Prallplatte in Singapore combined several different hobbies to give i-SOBOT a Steam-Punk mobile attack platform.

Wireless Video Camera i-SOBOT Robot (Video)

Long term i-SOBOT robot fans, like us, will remember that Takara/TOMY originally had plans to release a second model equipped with a mobile camera. Although the concept was great, and would have been welcomed by robot fans worldwide, unfortunately circumstances worked against bringing the video camera robot to market.

But one resourceful i-SOBOT devotee, Paxshikai, has been clever enough to hack a video camera i-SOBOT together himself.

Takara/Tomy Set to Release New Pet Robot Series

We can’t share the details with you, at least not yet, but we can tell you that Takara/Tomy is about to release some of the cutest, and most interesting, pet robots we’ve ever seen. We had the chance to play with them and could hardly resist sneaking a couple into our pocket.

i-SOBOT Named Mizuno Golf Celebrity Spokesperson

Mizuno Golf selected the Takara Tomy i-SOBOT robot as the perfect spokesperson for their new Cyborg Head line of golf clubs. The Cyborg Head promotional campaign will last six months, and features special gifts, magazine promotions, and even a professional golf tournament sponsorship with the details to be announced soon.

Under 1kg Humanoid Robot Competition (Video)

While the ROBO-ONE humanoids have set the standard for 2 kg, and much larger, bipedal robots, some fans just don’t have the space, resources, or budget to get actively into building robots that large.

To expand the playing field, RT Corp staged an under 1 kg. humanoid robot competition last weekend including some really interesting i-SOBOT battles. Many thanks to Iketomu for posting videos of the action.

Last summer at RoboGames 2008 one brave soul put his i-SOBOT in the rink going head to head against much larger bots, including Robonova-1’s. And, surprisingly, he managed to do well enough to win a metal. This coming summer, we’d love to see an under 1kg humanoid classification at RoboGames 2009, with lots of i-SOBOTs entered.

Brave Enough to Hack the i-SOBOT?

It’s kind of embarassing to admit that we actually have three i-SOBOT robots that have never been hacked. Even more embarassing ? two of them have never been out of the box. Two are the original Japanese versions, and were early enough in the production build that they probably have the ROMs that can be reburned. The other one is a US (Black) version.

There is a lot of i-SOBOT hacking information available online, including a fairly detailed English language hacking report, and a fantastic reverse engineering analysis by Ishii-san (in Japanese). The only question is whether or not we have the guts to attempt hacking one of our little buddies…

TOMY Scheduled to Roll Out the Tiny Robo-Q Robot

According to an article posted on the Nikkei BP website, Takara Tomy will start shipping the tiny Robo-Q robot on February 28^th at an MSRP of 3,675 yen. Only 3.7 cm tall, the robot is reported to be “AI” equipped ? though we’re definitely going to withhold judgement on that until we get a chance to test one ourselves.

No information on overseas marketing schedules was available at the time of posting.

Robot Sightings: Willis Tackles Robots, Humongous Humanoid List, Free Online Robot Soccer, and more...

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 21:10 2009 is just around the corner, so we're excited about the "Surrogates" flick starring Bruce Willis tinyurl.com/bruce-willis-robot
• 07:06 Virginia Tech students won the 2008 International Capstone Design Grand Prize with climbing robots (tinyurl.com/climbing-robots)
• 07:10 Remote medical consultation using robots is being rolled out by the military (tinyurl.com/military-doctor-robots)
• 07:16 Luis put together a long, long, long, and growing link list of humanoid robots (tinyurl.com/long-list-humanoids).
• 11:17 RobotServicesGroup is offering free, online, robot soccer games (tinyurl.com/online-robot-soccer) with head-to-head i-SOBOT robots.
• 11:25 Code and compete with a virtual micromouse robot simulated in Microsoft Robotics Studio (tinyurl.com/virtual-micromouse-robot)
• 11:32 Funny video clip with two cute characters controlling a 'robot' tinyurl.com/robot-remote-control
• 11:43 More on the Japan 2008 Robot of the Year awards (tinyurl.com/robot-of-the-year) from Pink Tentacle.

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Robot Sightings: Dishwashing robots, great Mech art, RoboTrace. and more...

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 22:36 Androgenoid Jules ability to match facial expresions has captured attention all over the world. tinyurl.com/Androgenoid-Jules
• 22:47 The TOMY i-SOBOT awarded "Robot of the Year for 2008" by the Japanese government: tinyurl.com/isobot-japan-robot-of-the-year
• 22:51 ZMP and Tokyo Metropolitan University team up to fuse web intelligence and music delivery robots tinyurl.com/zmp-music-robot
• 22:57 Panasonic and University of Tokyo use robotics to load dishes in the dishwasher (tinyurl.com/dishwashing-robot) I missed the point...
• 23:06 KISS Institute for Practical Robotics announced the inaugural youth Botball Advisory Council (tinyurl.com/botball-council).
• 23:12 We poked around a bit and found a better report on why the dishwashing robot might make sense: tinyurl.com/dishwashing-robot-redux
• 23:16 The annual RoboTrace robot competition was held last month at Tsukuba (tinyurl.com/robotrace-robot-report)
• 23:26 Nothing to do directly with robots, but we thought you might be curious about Christmas here in Japan tinyurl.com/christmas-in-japan
• 00:48 Pink Tentacle uncovered a treasure trove of great Mech and Robot artwork on Pixiv (tinyurl.com/robot-mech-art)
• 00:52 Sugiura-san has 6+ years of ROBO-ONE experience. Dynamizer is offering services to other builders tinyurl.com/dynamizer-robotworks
• 01:09 Droidworks puts the KTX Gladiator humanoid robot through its paces (tinyurl.com/droidworks-ktx-robot). Looks pretty cool, though $$$.
• 08:29 British Scientist worried about robot nannies (tinyurl.com/babysitter-robots) but doesn't mention the biggest nanny of all - TV
• 08:36 With the Big 3 tanking it may be really bad timing, but Asimo going to lead the 2009 Rose Parade tinyurl.com/asimo-leads-rose-parade.
• 10:57 Iwaki-san's (Robot Force) Transformer robot video breaks 1,000,000 views and keeps going strong (tinyurl.com/transformer-robot)

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Robot Sightings: iSOBOT Jedi Wars, Canadian Robot Sumo, Battlebot Photos, and more....

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 20:23 Reading an Instructables on gutting a toy piano. Great way to add sound to a robot. tinyurl.com/6889m2
• 23:18 The 2008 Japan Robot of the Year award events are coming up the 19th to 21st at TEPA. www.robotaward.jp/for_general/
• 23:37 ETRI in Korea is promoting a robotics open platform: tinyurl.com/5cge2u
• 07:38 The iSOBOT Jedi Wars continues tinyurl.com/6mylgd Paxshikai is so creative!
• 07:47 Setup Karen's Power Tools Replicator with the Drobo - automatic, painless backups! www.karenware.com/powertools/powertools.asp
• 08:00 Robots7 built a pretty large hexapod tinyurl.com/5qdgb8 but, no link to their website. Drat! I'd like to know more.
• 08:05 The Canadians (www.robotgames.ca/) are also into robot sumo (tinyurl.com/59524m) Who would have guessed?
• 08:10 Pretty funny, but creative motor application tinyurl.com/5cd2vg . Might be useful to give a robot some personality.
• 10:22 Found an awesome collection of Battlebot photos going back a few years - flickr.com/photos/anniecatblue/tags/battlebots/
• 10:26 California Insect Bots (www.calbugs.com/). Remember to connect with them at Robogames 2009.
• 10:33 Robot Fighting League put together a 2009 Wall Calendar (share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0UctXDNs0ZORg) if you're into that scene.
• 10:35 Sorry - the full RFL Calendar link should be tinyurl.com/67lrrn
• 11:38 This brings a whole new meaning to the word "mooning" www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/12/12/full.moon/

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