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Robo-One's Robot Boxing Champion Reveals Combat Secrets
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 10:00 PM on August 29, 2008
Naoki Maru may live in Hikone, north of Kyoto, down the road from a samurai castle full of katana swords and armour, but for him, the ancient Japanese art of bushido is best carried out with robots, not people. King Kizer, the Maru family robot, has dominated the Robo-One tourney over the past three years, collecting US$50,000 in prize money. Maru, a factory engineer by day, is trying to perfect a way to make Kizer even more of an arse kicker using a technique he had seen many times in anime: A harness that captures human movements and translates them into robotic attacks and other gestures.
Naoki Maru may live in Hikone, north of Kyoto, down the road from a samurai castle full of katana swords and armour, but for him, the ancient Japanese art of bushido is best carried out with robots, not people. King Kizer, the Maru family robot, has dominated the Robo-One tourney over the past three years, collecting US$50,000 in prize money. Maru, a factory engineer by day, is trying to perfect a way to make Kizer even more of an arse kicker using a technique he had seen many times in anime: A harness that captures human movements and translates them into robotic attacks and other gestures.
For the first time in history, an unmanned machine has engaged and destroyed another unmanned machine in real combat. It sounds like science fiction, but it happened a week ago in Iraq, when a MQ-9 Reaper killed a remote controlled vehicle carrying a bomb.
One day, robots will whiz by us one one wheel at 1000kph while solving absurd equations that would take us lifetimes to calculate. But that day has not yet come. So when a robot with coordination no better than a toddler starts trash-talking its humanoid accomplice, you know we're in for a painful and degrading future. Here's the clip:
For those of you looking for your first taste of a female robot that will do your bidding, the US$99 WowWee 
One of the front runners of an ongoing British Army-sponsored competition for new military technology is this miniature spaceship-looking thing, which is designed to inconspicuously drop bombs and listening devices behind enemy lines. The external blade-less shape allows the machine to enter buildings through windows or doors, and an HD camera feed lets it double as a surveillance bot.
If I was trapped in a pile of earthquake rubble, I'd do just about anything to get the hell out as soon as possible. But if this cilia-covered rescue snakebot squirmed it's way up my leg, I think the chances of heart failure might need to be factored in. It's called the Active Scope Camera, and it was conceived by researchers at Japan's Tohoku University, all of whom are clearly fans of War of the Worlds. It's a fibre-optic camera wrapped in a layer of tiny cilia bristles, which allow for millipede-like locomotion that's creepy, creepy, creepy in this video.
Here's the MechRC, a user-friendly, fully-programmable robot that uses a gamepad to control 17 precision servos which provide 180-degrees of movement. It looks Cylon-class badass in this shot, but from a normal angle it's more a black Optimus Prime than a human-killing bot.
Who doesn't want the ability to control robotic arms? Especially when the robo-arms are mapped directly to contact points and grasping-force from your own five fingers. Even though this wonderfully named MiesterGRIP does indeed give you robo-arm control, don't expect to be lifting cars anytime soon since it appears grabbing a balloon is the most exciting trick that's currently possible.
That is, if you're excited about the prospect of talking to a creepy joker-faced white beetle with eye holes as hollow as your soul when you're around the conference table. The folks at the Nokia Research Center's 
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We already have plenty of 
The Stonehenge Robot isn't the most practical means to keep time, but it's got charm to spare. Programmed to carefully move any of 14 double-sided cards to display the proper time, Stonehenge gets some leeway as the cards are designed to stick to the magnetic table. The only potential problem is that the robot may require more than 1 minute to shuffle the display. But in such cases, Stonehenge predicts its lag and compensates by simply grabbing the next appropriate digit(s). Here's a clip of the Stonehenge doing its thing:
Last Tuesday, a group of professors, students and robotics hobbyists launched the H.A.L.E. (High Altitude Lego Extravaganza): seven Lego Mindstorms robots attached to a weather balloon, which exploded at 30km over the Earth's surface. Each of the robots parachuted back successfully, but not without taking the obligatory photographs of the ascent and descent:
Dave McGoran of the University of West England has built what he called the Heart Robot, a semihumanoid doll that "appreciates" affection. Covered in a variety of sensors, Heart Robot responds to your attentions with a range of expressive and, to be honest, unsettling tools: batting eyelids, a beating heart and pleasant purring, to name a few.
Robotic hands and arms may be getting 
Much like the United States, Britain has a bit of an illegal immigration problem. Tens of thousands risk their lives to cross into Britain each year by clinging underneath trucks transported on ferries. To combat this problem, BAE systems has provided the border agency with a robot dubbed "Hero" that is capable of ferreting out these stowaways using a combination of cameras and sensors. The device can check underneath vehicles and even detect heartbeats when fitted with the proper equipment. It can also be used to identify chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials being smuggled into the country. 
