ROBOTS DREAMS

Celebrating the 100th Paxshikai i-SOBOT video (Video)

Paxshikai is the undisputed master of the i-SOBOT robot and over the past two years has produced a never ending stream of entertaining i-SOBOT videos with the robot demonstrating his custom gadgets. His creations, fabricated by hand in his workshop have included crossbows, a bazooka, various machine guns and even gattling guns, a bow and arrow, a light saber, and more.

To celebrate the release of his 100th i-SOBOT video he put together the compliation and retrospective clip below.

OTL makes the TOMY i-SOBOT hackable! (Video)

The team motto for the gang at OTL Technology Laboratory is “We are producing interesting robots!”, and they couldn’t have picked a better motto. It fits perfectly.

The first robot designed they unveiled back in July was a humanoid with an iPhone 3GS head (see below). Then they added additional functionality by making the robot bilingual.

Now they have developed a small interface board that mates an Arduino board with the i-SOBOT! The board allows individual control over each of the i-SOBOT’s 17 servos, and eliminates the stock IR remote control device.

i-SOBOT Robot Pops Balloons (Video)

We have no idea where he finds the time, but Paxshikai seems to be blessed with a never-ending wealth of talent and creativity, especially when it comes to giving birth to new i-SOBOT tricks, hacks, stunts, and videos.

Since November, 2007 he’s posted 87 i-SOBOT videos, many that required building or modifying small mechanisms to work with the robot. And, they have all been done with a generous dose of humor and style.

His latest video creation shows the robot breaking balloons, which could certainly be turned into a fun and competitive party game for those robot fans (like us) that have a couple of the cute little humanoid robotic pals.

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.