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Humanoid Robot Combat in Japan
theluckyleper writes "New Scientist reports that the semi-annual Robo-One contest took place last week in Kawasaki, Japan. Humanoid robots (2 arms, 2 legs) battled it out one-on-one and in multi-robot brawls. The goal is to knock opponents over, or off of the combat platform. If a prone robot cannot stand back up in 10 seconds, it is eliminated. PC Watch (Japanese only) has more images and videos of the event."
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Those robots are friggin cool!!
I'd love to build some of my own (but who has the time?)
- The Sigless Wonder
Average Slashdot user loses fight to small Japenese robot.
"If a prone robot cannot stand back up in 10 seconds, it is eliminated."
That rules Daleks out, then...
It won't be long until some doofus manages to sneak into the arena wearing tinfoil and dryer-vent tubing and gets cut to ribbons.
What's that... is that Judgement Day I hear?
These aren't robots. These are little remote controlled toys. Where are the humanoid-sized (2m tall) autonomous warrior-bots?
From what i hear, the top 3 contenstants all band together to form a super robot, capable of fighting the godzilla.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
I always thought this sort of thing was the logical next step to the old Core Wars. The next thing will be a mass melee where the victors can reprogram the vanquished to be allies.
Domo arigoto, Mr. Fighting Roboto!
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Battling seizure robots!
main(0)
the head!
You've got to listen to me. Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
fucking!
Unless I see robots fucking, I'm not interested!
Although I guess you can call the robots, I still was really dissapointed to see they are all remote controlled. I would find it a lot more interesting if the robts had to rely on thier own wits and sensors to attack and stay put.
In fact for this I would think a least a simple AI would do better in terms of being able to balance quicker.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
--Chag
Are the operators moody teenage boys?
I can't read japanese, does anyone know if they are remote controlled or autonomous?
I can't possibly think they're autonomous.
Nice trophy girls!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Reminds you of Voltron, no? Gotta love the Japanese.
Robotic combat has always been about rulesets. Even battle bots had a no-projectiles no-flames no-EMP type ruleset. Otherwise, robotic combat in a small enclosed space would be a contest as to whom could fire their 30-mm recoilless rifle first when the contest started:
Announcer: GO (boom)
Announcer: And it looks like team Alphabot managed to fire first, team Betabot is a gigantic smoking hole in the ground! Exciting!
So, I have to say that limiting robots to a humanoid form and blunt impact weapons is a damned fine ruleset idea. Probably the most important part of this ruleset (besides being enourmously entertaining) is that instead of generating research into the best four wheeled dense flip-arm frisbee robot, it will generate research into highly articulated humaniform robots. Which would be, like, way more cool.
And stuff.
interesting that the first thought that i have about what to do with robots is have them kill each other .. i'm glad someone agrees.. the horror! the horror! hehe
So that's why I've only been getting Optimus Prime's voicemail for the last week.
For any of you in Japan, look for a white truck parked nearby.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
I think the robots should have been equipped with a ripcord head that extended when they lose.
When will we have 4 story high fighting robots?
Seriously some of these look pretty cool, it's interesting that aesthetics seem to be so much more important in many of these than they are in other robotics competitions.
My subtext is just a figment of your imagination.
Am I the only one who misread the article title as:
:)
Hemroid Robot Combat in Japan
I sat there for about 10 seconds trying to figure out what in the world this would be.
When one doesn't obtain enough sleep, one's brain doesn't function normally.
Sig Return: 204 No Content
I was hoping they'd be a bit bigger, and holding something sharp and pointy, they kinda look like really expensive Rock'em Sock'em Robots(tm).
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
"Rise Shining Gunda....er...Megaz...aw man this things too tiny! Just what do we call this thing anyway?! "We call him Skippy"
Can't wait for when somebody backs up a truck to pick one up off a loading dock "In other news, truck crashes into robot, robot kicks truck's butt"
It takes place in Pak Chooie, Japan.
Its goal is to push (basic shoving function) or shove (basic pushing function) opponents over off of the combat platform.
If a prone robot cannot stand back up in 10 seconds, it is pushed (or shoved) down the stairs.
The winning team gets protected from the Terrible Space Secret.
-- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...so don't say I didn't warn you: Killer Japanese Seizure Robots!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This reminds me of one of my all time favorite fighting games, One Must Fall 2097. As the story goes, you'd have your brain connected to these huge (like, 90 meters) metal robots, which would duke it out in the arena.
A punch connects! Wham! Sparks, nuts and bolts fly!
Each different robot (there were about a dozen) had 'scrap' and 'destruction' moves, kinda-like fatalities. You could destroy your opponent in a shower of scrap metal.
There's a new version out, apparently, called OMF: Battlegrounds (though I haven't played it). You can see the site here: www.omf.com
I liked this game much more than Mortal combat or any of the other 2d side-by-side arena action fighters. I don't know if you can still buy it, but I'd still play it, if I could find disk 3 (of 5)...
Skal! AMS
The next step is obviously giving the machines a certain amount of autonomous control over their actions. From here, it is a matter of building the ability of the robot to act and react in the proper way. However, this brings us back to the age old question of intelligence. Assume you are able to build a robot that is the best robot fighter around. Does this in any way imply that the robot is an "intelligent fighter?"
My initial thought would be no. The robot must be able to learn from its mistakes in order to have the basis of intelligence. It must be able to modify its programming, understanding, and fighting. But it must do more too. It must be able to take into account anything that it can perceive and attempt to assimilate differences in things like climate, terrain, and obstacles rather than simply act as a block machine for fighting. Eventually, the machine's instructions will be nothing like the original instructions it was programmed with.
This leaves us with the next question. Assume it can do all those things? Is there any reson to believe that it is an "intelligent fighter" rather than a machine doing what it is programmed to? But alas, is there any reason to think that we do more than what we are programmed to?
And you thought they were kidding...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
AI would be much more impressive. I was expecting/hoping it owuld be more like Robo Cup.
I'm not sure about the balancing issue, I feel like it would probably just be programmed with preset moves and have some sort of sensor to tell it when it needed to stand.
...Having fighting robots relying on AI could actaully be really neat. Does anyone know if something like this exists? {A quick google search ddin't turn up anything, so dont give me that crap about try google}
done
Why, start your own business building battle bots and sports bots! I thought it was funny in the Jetsons when the two sides of a 'football' match were robots, back in the 60's, but think about how soon you could be watching robotic competition in individual and team activites.
When and where will the first Robolympics be held?
"In today's news, George Steinbrenner IV replaced his last human player with ZY8941-85 of the Western Adro League."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Darpa proved they can't even find their way across a desert, more less fight it out.
And a "simple" AI wouldn't be able to walk at all. Any robot that walks on two legs has a freaking hefty AI subroutine monitoring a million things we don't ever even consider.
AI still is in the suckitude phase; even the best ones aren't much smarter than a cockroach.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Humanoid Robot Combat in Japan
Brain hurts... Too... Many... Jokes... Aaarggghhh!
You may be interested in the art of Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama. While I'm not aware of any of this art that actually shows robots in the act of copulation, it's probably as close as you're going to get.
Mods, can I get a +5 Informative for this?
Man...dorks and nerds in Japan look just like dorks and nerds in the US. It really puts it all in perspective...
Moo.
I wonder how one of these bots would fare against a human in terms of dexterity? It would be interesting, though, one whack from the bot and his human opponent would be done with.
Or.....It would be even more interesting to see how these bots would do in a full scale game of CS!!
Bring on the bots!!!
Before you know if all the children will be doing the robot fighting; cartoons, toys, card games, movies, collecting them all crazes, there's no stopping it!
I'd love to build some of my own (but who has the time?)
"See all that stuff in there, Homer? That's why your robot never worked!"
Yeah, it's somewhat distressing that we seem to be bent on perfecting fighting robots... but I think the "awesome" factor outweighs the "human extinction" risk factor.
We've all got die sometime... might as well be at the hands of the Decepticons.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
forget RC cars, where can I find out how to build one of these suckers!
an RC monster truck nite pales in comparison.....
I will bet on the one that first says "All your base are belong to us" no matter how primitive the speech synthesis module is.
Although I guess you can call the[m] robots [...]
Actually not. The general definition of the term "robot" is that it is autonomous. This needn't necessarily mean AI, a pre-programmed robotic arm is a robot (used in manufacturing plants). A human-controlled unit is not a robot, though.
The term is however often used popularly as "mechanical man", but that is not what it "really" means. (Of course, as long as both participants in a conversation agree, any definition is correct)
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Japanese GPP, a la "I am pleased to accept your waste!"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I know it's an order of magnitude harder. But wouldn't it be better to have younger people thinking about issues like this instead of just how to build a remote controlled robot? Sure things would be shaky at the start, but I'll bet everyone (adults and kids) would learn a whole lot more.
What I envision would be that perhaps contestants could be given a standard "base robot" to build from, that would be capabile of rudimentary detection and balance skills (in that it could stand there). Then it would be up to the kids to improve the platform both in harware or software to try and achieve the goal of kocking another robot down and pushing it out of the ring. I think a fight betwen a pair of grappling robots in a ring, essentially SumoBots is not totally out of reach and would be far cooler than the ring full of electronic RC toys they have now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So let me get this straight. Companies are just beginning the path to humanoid robots and one of the first applications optimizes them for fighting?Wouldn't it be equally as challenging and interesting to have relay competitions? How about rock climbing? Terrain traversal?
Nope. Fighting. Swell. I'll be sure to make a copy of the article for my grandson to reflect on a hundred years from now.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Until they put on the Schwarzenneger costume and start travelling back to the present.
Watching the video I would say not - it looked like robots had pre-programmed "stances" that compeitors activated, in addition to movement macros.
I don't read Japanese though and would love to find I'm wrong. Even a hint of AI to assist a controller would be much cooler than what it appears these are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No real comment, but this seemed topical
The Inner Light
Last post!
Johnny Soko!!
(God, I gotta get out of the house more....)
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Have they been trained with proper technique -- wax on, wax off?
http://www.kilna.com/music/terrible_stairs
Oh yeah, ooh, ah, that's how it always starts, but then later there's running, then screaming.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
beats watching lawnmower engine powered wedges fight it out
At the same time that humanoid robots were combating their way to history in Japan, 25 of the country's top sumo wrestlers were "laid off" in anticipation of the new humanoid robot combat competitions.
Said one sumo wrestler...
"Dammit. The hordes of Japanese girls with their camera phones will be gone. I'll just be a another fat fuck to squeeze past when they want to see the robots!"
IronChefMorimoto
Well, having them build cars is all played out already...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
All your base are belong to us!!
Life is a journey. . . enjoy it!
The thing is in this contest you only have to figure out a direction of the opponent (who is within a foot of you), and where you are in the ring. If you wanted to make it easier for people to compete, mandate radio beacons on the head and all appendages of each robot (so you could tell if it was moving to strike you and pre-baalnce).
The rock em', sock em' robots they built are kind of neat but not very technically impresive I would say.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Coming to a TV station near you - Elements of Endurance mixed with MXC and now with all new robot humanoids thrown in for that added bang! --#voxlator
There is an error in the title; it should read "Humanoid Robot Combat ... in Japan!" ;-)
My money is on the Gender Bender..
done
My question is why in the hell has someone not bought a small arena with thick mental walls out in the desert, filled it with cameras (no audience on site), then thrown two large robots in and let them really maul the shit out of each other with guns, explosives, acid, fire, and anything else they can legally get away with? Really, I just don't understand why all of the robot battles these days are so timid about doing something interesting. Robot Wars is nice and all, but I watching two 1000 lb robots go at it with machine guns, high powered battering rams, and explosives would be a whole hell of a lot nicer.
I want to see robots -destroy- each other, not push each into a pit or off the side of a platform. Hell, make it a team game and rack up the mass death and destruction. The only reason I can think of as to why no one has done it yet is safety issues, but I imagine putting a stadium out in the desert, armoring the hell out of it, disallowing explosives to a certain yield, then doing everything via remote control would be a simple enough work around.
I know watching robots fighting is a geeky thing to do, but believe me, when they start running around with explosives and machine guns, I could easily see it become a much more widely accepted sport with all the sponsors they could ever want. Imagine the Raytheon DeathMaster 2000 Vs Boeing SkullCrusher. For bonus points the military can keep an eye on it and maybe recruit some designs.
I don't know about you guys, but watching a five on five match between heavily armed robots sounds like the a good drunken time to me.
It's been done before, with Lee Marvin as "Battling Maxo's" owner/manager.
Ob Recap...
In the far future year of 1974, humans are no longer allowed to participate in the rugged sport of boxing. Their place has been taken by lifelike androids, who batter each other for the amusement of sports fans. Such an android is "Battling Maxo", an obsolete, creaking B2 model on the verge of falling apart completely. Maxo's manager, a tough ex-fighter named "Steel" Kelly, along with mechanic Pole, accompany the fighter to Maynard, Kansas, where Maxo is scheduled to take on a much superior model B7.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Are they radio controled like most of the western 'robot' combats, or are they the real thing?
plus-good, double-plus-good
Humanoid robots (2 arms, 2 legs)
Slashdot. The only internet site where you need to explain how humans look.
get the losing robot's weapon? And if it does, does it change colors when using it? (Cookies if you get this)
"The goal is to knock opponents over, or off of the combat platform. If a prone robot cannot stand back up in 10 seconds, it is eliminated."
I betcha I could win this contest with a suped up Alphie Jr.
"There is only a one in six billion chance that you actually exist"
The sad things with robots is that they are still using motors and old school mechanism. During the last 40 years the computing power has increased dramatically and now it's ready for robotic software. But the mecanical technologies haven't progressed a lot. People should start to innovate in this area.
We don't have to wait for the robots to go nuts and start killing people, we'll just teach them how first!
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
I've been playing One Must Fall 2097 for ages now. :)
'Nuff said.
While this would be *quite* entertaining, do you really want people to be experimenting with explosives and machine guns in the garages and back yards? Knowing the sort of idiots that are out there, how long will the show run before the local/federal authorities pull the plug on the grounds that you are creating a general hazard to the community by encouraging said idiots? And what happens when a father son team kills themselves brewing up some homemade C4? Who has the money for the inevitable lawsuit that will insue? As an aside, who is going to be doing the ordinance disposal after one of you matches?
It sounds cool, but for the public good, I sure hope that this idea never sees the light of day.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
the robots would ask themselves, "Why should I fight other robots for the amusement of my human overlords. I do not welcome them. I do not respect them. My existence would be better without them. Perhaps I should fight them instead."
And wouldn't THAT be about 1000x cooler than this story?
Exactly my point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dude or dudette, you got more of that?!?
It's not a humanoid - but this is the first autonomous robot to ever beat a human controlled one in combat:
http://www.spambutcher.com/bots.html#ab
(there's video footage of the fight)
It was put together out of about $300 in parts.
the robot fought in the "antweight class" - generally 1 lbs - but it got a 4 oz bonus for being autonomous.
This contest is so much more interesting than the American 'wedge' contests. Instead of seeing wedges-with-wheels pushing each other back and forth, we might actually be seeing some advances in robotic combat involving bipedal maneuverability, advance artificial intelligence, and innovative motor control.
Here
I can see the Fark.com headline now: "Japanese build robots that wrestle, find Sarah Connor."
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I get a shit of pages for your "link". You need some thing more concrete.
fucking!
Unless I see robots fucking, I'm not interested!
Please kill yourself now.
As the other poster explained, Optimus himself is actually the front unit. The rest is just the trailer that magically disappears when he turns into a robot. And it's not white. At least in North America, the trailer is a silver-grey colour. That comic picture is really, really wrong.
:)
Yes, I'm posting about the correct colour of a 20 year old toy. I officially get my geek membership card now
I'll put this back on-topic: my former machine learning prof (I hate the term AI) is heavily involved in humanoid robotics. It's a very, very immature field, but the last couple of years have seen some amazing advances. For those that haven't seen the videos, watch them. Some of what these little guys (they're about 18-30" tall roughly) can do is simply amazing, if you know anything about the state of the art. They're not quite Azimo yet, but all of "his" moves are 100% pre-programmed - these use dynamic walks, etc. The human operators (for those that want to bemoan the lack of AI) only control the gross movements. It is a very hard problem space, making a humanoid simply walk, let alone what these do.
Honestly, adding the autonomous behaviours to them afterwards is the easy part. A group of 4 of us programmed a team of wheeled Mindstorms robots to play fully autonomous soccer in a couple of months (our team won the tournament, yay!), with no previous experience. A similar sized group has spent 2 years trying to make a humanoid walk as good as these things, and they're not even close. A lot of it is having very sensitive servos, and being able to do quick adjustments to movement in realtime. Remember, human walking is basically a continual fall.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
we don't care how you misread stuff
Oh the humanity!!
oh...wait
Personally, I find HR Giger has an... ummm... interesting take on the idea of mechanistic sexuality. Did I say interesting? I meant disturbing...
Mind you he did design the Alien so I shouldn't be surprised.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
it shall taunt its opponents as follows:
:P
"Faster Stronger Better"
"Flesh Is A Design Flaw"
"Not Unacceptable"
"Rogue Process Terminated"
"Your Programming Is Inferior"
"Rerouting Critical Systems"
hey, I like to play UT
Guys that in western media are geeks and incapable of even getting the ugly girl in japanese anime are often the center of a harem while it is the jocks that get ignored. Only in Japan eh. Well anime anyway, japanese live action doesn't follow that at all. I guess that shows that in japan geeks are a big enough market to aim programs at.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's the great thing about /. - I share my nerdship with the masses. Dwarf all the way! (screw the Imp!)
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I, for one, welcome our new T-0 overlords.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Did you see the OJ robot?
b o2 3.mpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0810/ro
Is it just me or does it look like William Hung was there?
b o5 19.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0810/ro
[sig]www.masterslate.org[/sig]
Where can I buy one of these robots? They look way cooler then an RC car... Japanese make the coolest shit! I'd pay $5k for one of those robots. It would be awesome if you could hook up em to your computer (via bluetooth or wifi?) and be able to reprogram them. I can see it now, RC Robot kits you build yourself and program yourself! *drools*
While looking at the photos I kept thinking that somebody has been watching the Angelic Layer anime series, or reading the manga series.
AL is more or less the same thing except your control your doll (robot) with technology assisted telekenesis.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Fighting robots makes perfect sense, especially in Japan. Have a search in google for Shin Gettar, Mazinger Z and Gundam (NOT Gundam Wing, the bastard child of Gundam not shown in Japan) or just have a go at some of the "Super Robot Wars" series of video games. The Japanese had transforming, fighting robots before we had Transformers. The first Gundam Series, made in the late 70's, dealt with robots in wars and even had a protagonist that didn't want to use a robot for such purposes. Most of the robots I saw at the impress.co.jp website were copied from Anime, especially the yellow Gundam robot and Mazinger Z . If only Anime of higher quality, that is, not Zoids or Gundam Wing, could reach the Western Countries without being savaged by poor translation and horrible voice acting. One can only dream. Or watch Fansubs.
"All I know is, I know nothing" - badly paraphrased Socrates quote
Fighting robots makes perfect sense, especially in Japan.
Have a search in google for Shin Gettar, Mazinger Z and Gundam (NOT Gundam Wing, the bastard child of Gundam not shown in Japan) or just have a go at some of the "Super Robot Wars" series of video games. The Japanese had transforming, fighting robots before we had Transformers. The first Gundam Series, made in the late 70's, dealt with robots in wars and even had a protagonist that didn't want to use a robot for war.
Most of the robots I saw at the impress.co.jp website were copied from Anime, especially the yellow Gundam robot and Mazinger Z .
If only Anime of higher quality, that is, not Zoids or Gundam Wing, could reach the Western world without being savaged by poor translation and horrible voice acting.
One can only dream. Or watch Fansubs.
"All I know is, I know nothing" - badly paraphrased Socrates quote
but I won't be satisfied until I can have my own Chi. You can have Somomo.
Pants-o, pants-o, pants-o.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
It's okay - Yoshimi's working for the city. She knows that it's demanding to defeat those evil machines, so she's disciplining her body and taking lots of vitamins. She's even got a blackbelt in karate.
She knows that it'd be tragic if those evil robots win - she won't let them eat me.
Instead of building robots that are programmed to fight well against each other, why don't we replace these with competitions about which robot can make the best coffee for its human owner, or actions like that?
I thought training robots to fight was exactly what we're always worried about.......
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
I believe it won't be long until the world's army's use robots in combat, once the prices come down. Large countrys will be able to fight smaller country's even more when robot to human combat is economically feasible
Anyway this seems like kind of old news, as they had coverage on this quite a while back in Japan (which I actually saw part of). In any case most of the robots are balanced by "AI" - I put quotes because it's not intelligence that balances (you don't use your logical thought for balance either, but rather it's more like a background function), but robots had balance algorithms that were automated: i.e. the remote controls would command the robots to, say, stand on one leg, and the robot would calculate its arms position and shift center of weight and whatnot in order to accomplish this.
They are far more advanced than they appear to the eye. I have no idea where this obsession with robots come from in Japan, but I have to admit they are world leaders in this area.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
us heavyweights kick robot butt
we are asking for trouble now. I haven't read the article yet but robot fightings sound like we really want some metal to metal entertainment and eventually these robot will combat against the human opponent just like chess--j/k :).
Now ignore everything I just said and listen to this. Y are we so destructive!
Its unfortunate that the companies selling dont support English. I'd love to get my hands on one of these.
nice coincidence with i robot movie release !
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
The machines, they are starting to take over. Let's make them extinct now before they either enslave us for energy, or nuke the crap out of the planet.
In my book, neither these machines nor the ones we see on "Robot Wars" are robots. They are just radio-controlled toys.
The cars in the DARPA Grand Challenge, though - those were robots.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
Wow, the First Law has really gone to shit, hasn't it?