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The 16th ROBO-ONE competition was held this weekend in Toyoma, Japan. And the champion belt went to OmniZero.9 . A great video by respected journalist and popular blogger Kazumichi Moriyama of the robot doing a demonstration. Takeshi Maeda, the creator of the OmniZero series, gets on his newest robot. It is AMAZING what the ROBO-ONE participants continue to accomplish!! And it's not like they can spend millions of dollars in R&D like the Hondas and Toyotas of the world.
There's already been some reports about the cool robots at FOOMA JAPAN 2009, but here's another really cute food-handling robot that showed off it's skills there. And guess what? It's actually the ROBO-ONE robot Dynamizer made by the Sugiura Family! And the robot next to it is the Arimoplena by the Sumii Family sorting products. Since when did the battling bots start appearing at food trade shows?? In any case, that's great!
ROBO-ONE's MARU Family has developed a new humanoid robot - the New King Kizer. Compared to the Great King Kizer, the new robot stands 6cm taller at 60cm but weighs about 30% lighter and is only 3kg. Although the two robots may look similar from the outside, the new robot "is a completely different machine developed from scratch," according to Naoki Maru (father of the MARU Family).
(Photo: The New King Kizer (left) with the Great King Kizer)
The goal was to develop a lighter robot that maintains the size and striking power of the Great King Kizer. To accomplish this, Naoki used the newest servo motor from Kondo Kagaku - the KRS-6003HV - and modified it himself to boost it's speed. The New King Kizer uses only 17 servo motors whereas the Great King Kizer had 35.
The basic frames are aluminum (so are the Great's) but thinner and Naoki also used PET (polyethylene terephthalate) where strength is not an issue. The blades are made of recycled PP (polypropylene).
You can watch the New King Kizer in action on Robot Watch. The robot made it's debut at the 15th ROBO-ONE competition. Although it ended up as one of the Best 8 and not the grand champion at this competition, it was able to show off it's new skills. This link shows the throw technique.
Also Naoki and some others recently brought their robots to Hong Kong for a demo. Below is a video from Hong Kong. Although the title of this video says "Great King Kizer," it is actually the New King Kizer.
Kudos to the organizers and sponsors of the first All-Earth Ecobot Challenge ! The event which was held in Houston on April 25 was a huge success.
The MARU Family was there and I promised to post some pictures. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I was up on stage with them during the demos working as an interpreter, I don't have any photos of the actual demo. But here are some pictures and videos during preparation.
Great King Kizer and the 2 smaller soccer playing robots awaiting their turn.
Of course, Great King Kizer is famous as a battling robot, but since the event was geared around protecting the environment, it showed off some eco-related tasks. (The tasks were the assigments for the EcoBot competition and the teams used the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT kit to accomplish them.)
First, the robot was shown teleoperated using a custom-made motion synchronizer. On stage, Naoki Maru was standing right next to the robot, but the basic idea is that in the future we will be able to operate the robot remotely through our computers and network.
Next was the trash sorting demo. This time Great King Kizer was put in autonomous mode. The robot was handed either a used plastic bottle, can or paper package and was able to distinguish which one it is using image recognition. Then it looks at each trash bin to figure out where to put it. It takes a little while for the robot to determine the correct bin since it is using an inexpensive camera module from an old cell phone (great example for the recycling theme). On stage, Naoki asked the audience to choose the objects to sort to prove that the robot was not preprogrammed.
Other demos were related to baseball and soccer. Here are a couple of pictures of the same demo but at the residence of the Consulate General of Japan in Houston. There was a reception there preceding the event. Great King Kizer was able to pitch a ball and the soccer robots showed off a throw-in.
The last day was set aside for visiting local schools. It was fascinating to watch the students getting all excited with the demos. I believe that robots can play a great part in in the future in strengthening the ties of friendship across borders.
And now for some extra news! The MARU Family has developed a new robot - New King Kizer. You can get a glimpse of it here. Naoki believes that it is the "first humanoid in the world that can jump sideways." It is 60cm tall and weighs only 3kg since it uses only HALF the number of motors that Great King Kizer has. Also it uses PET (polyethylene terephthalate) for its frame which adds another eco-friendly aspect to the robot. More on the New King Kizer soon.......
The Maru Family - well-known in the robotics community in Japan - is coming to Houston. They have been invited to participate in the All-Earth EcoBot Challenge which is being held on April 25. They will be bringing their ROBO-ONE champion robot Great King Kizer (photo below) and King Kizer F3, which competes in the soccer tournaments.
The Maru Family has won numerous titles in robot competitions in Japan since they started competing in 2005. They became the first ever triple crown winner of the ROBO-ONE games in 2007.
Father Naoki Maru, who is an engineer and president of a casting company, builds the robots as his hobby. His two older sons, 13 year old Kenta and 10 year old Ryoma, operate the robots at the competitions. They will all be in Houston giving demos at the event. There will be an exhibition match between Great King Kizer and the winners of the EcoBot Challenge. They will also be visiting schools in Houston for further demos the following Monday.
GetRobo will be there so please check back to see more photos!
