GetRobo Blog English

The Genuine Great King Kizer follows "Moore's Law"

 Just sent in from robot builder Naoki Maru. A video of his newest creation - the Genuine Great King Kizer (or "Shin Great King Kizer" in Japanese), which stands 1 meter tall. (The robot looks a bit taller than the Maru Family's youngest son who is seen in the end of the video.)

  

 According to Maru-san, the size of his robots have doubled every 12-18 months, which is like "Moore's Law" - well, sort of. 

 The newest Shin Great King Kizer uses 12 servo motors (KRS-6003HV) on each leg. That's 4 servos for each pitch axis. Overall, the robot uses 37 servos and has 25 degrees of freedom. (I checked the catalog and these servos cost 412,020 yen for a pack of 18, which is about $4,660 in today's exchange rate. So you do the math to find out how much it costs to build this robot.)

 The Shin Great King Kizer won the ROBO-ONE Grand Prix which was held in November. It also participated in the "world's first" wrestling match between a robot and a professional (human) wrestler.

Where can I buy MANOI GO?

 Since the MANOI GO made a performance at the ROBO-ONE GATE dance competition late last month, GetRobo has received several emails asking about where they can purchase this robot.  

 So I asked Sadahiro Arai - owner of the robot shop Technologia in Akihabara Tokyo. MANOI GO was developed by  MANOI producer Masayuki Okamoto and robot builder Dr. GIY. It's not meant to be a mass produced product but they are willing to customize and sell it to you for about 300,000 yen (about $3,400 in today's exchange rate).  It will include all the motion data and clothing but NOT the head spin component, which is too bad because I think most of the people that wanted to buy this were interested in the head spin. The reason for that is because the head spin component needs to be adjusted each time and they won't be able to provide the maintenance/support after they sold you the robot. 

 If you are still interested in owning this robot, please contact Arai-san at Technologia  or GetRobo. Meanwhile here is a video from the recent dance competition.

Gundam Christmas Tree

 A Christmas tree decorated with over 60 Gundam plastic models was set up in Akihabara to promote the new Gundam game for the Sony PSP.  From robot journalist Moriyama-san's new blog NODE.

  

Bring your rescue robots to Kobe next summer

 The 10th Rescue Robot Contest will be held in Kobe, Japan next August. It will be 15 years since the city was hit by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which was the motive that started this competition. 

　Contestants will remotely operate their robots to rescue dummies buried under rubble within a 1/6 scale model of a disaster-stricken area. The operators can not see the robots directly but through a camera on the robot and another from above (meant to be from a helicopter).

 
(Photos:Rescue Robot Contest Executive Committee)

 You will not only compete in speed but also by how gently you handle the dummies. The dummies have built in sensors that check how much pressure and impact is being applied to the body and neck and the data is sent wirelessly to the score board.

 
 Although the website and rules are only in Japanese at this point, the organizers are hoping to get some participants from overseas. Two teams will be invited to SICE2010 in Taiwan to give demos. If you are interested, please contact office@rescue-robot-contest.org or GetRobo.

 This year's competition is not up on YouTube yet, but here is a video from 2008.

NEXTAGE aims to be a robot with "just the right touch"

 By now most of you have seen some photos/videos of Kawada Industries' new robot NEXTAGE. So I'm not going to explain the details of this upper body robot that is meant to work besides humans in factories, restaurants, etc. But I wanted to share with you what Takakatsu Isozumi, head of the robotics division at Kawada, told me this past summer when I had the chance to meet him in Japan. Isozumi-san is also the CEO of General Robotix, a Kawada subsidiary. He is seen in the far back in this video of three NEXTAGE robots doing a demo at iREX last week.

 Kawada is well-known for making the HRP series - including the female HRP-4C. Kawada developed the hardware and AIST develops the software. So Kawada has a long experience in developing bipedal humanoids.

 Isozumi-san said that they have now entered the "4th stage" in robotics R&D. In this new phase, Kawada will be focusing on the hands and arms. And in doing so, they think that the key is to apply what they've learned through their research in bipedal walking.

 For the robots to be able to walk on uneven surfaces, Kawada needed to come up with a combination of sensors and mechanical parts that would enable them to adjust accordingly. In a similar way, the upper body robots need "just the right touch of ingredients that will allow them to be flexible, and moreover safe."  And of course, safety is utterly important for these robots that will be working right besides you. To use another word, Kawada wants its robots to be "temperate."

 Customers that bought the HRP series were researchers so they knew how to work them. But NEXTAGE will be for people that don't necessarily know about robots. They just want to use them. Same goes for Kawada's other upper body robot HIRO which is for the research community but for researchers that want to come up with applications and for conducting human-robot-interaction studies.

 Isozumi-san sent me a cool photo of the new HIRO without the shirt. Apparently some customers didn't care for the jersey.....