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For Building DIY Droids, It Helps to Live In Japan

Posted by timothy on from the this-is-not-heathkit-from-1978 dept.

destinyland writes "Want to build a robot this summer? 'Robot-loving Japanese are tinkering with screwdrivers and motors instead of heading to the beach,' and this article identifies the stores and sites serving robot hobbyists. Several sites are actually selling leftover industrial robots, but there's a variety of smaller-size robot vendors, from Tokyo's Vstone Robot Center to Carl's Electronics in Oakland (which sells sound-activated 'Hydradzoids' and solar-powered robots that crawl). Hasbro even sells their own functioning R2-D2 droid with real sonar navigation and a 'voice recognition response module.'"

3 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. In the US ... by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What are the chances that if you opened up a such a store in the US, you would have homeland security checking out your credentials?

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  2. Re:What's really going on in Japan hobbyist roboti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yeah but as you make it smaller, you need smaller, faster, more accurate accelerometers, actuators, etc. to keep it working. Gets expensive to scale something like that down.

  3. Waiting by Malenx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll be more excited when we finally come up with a good long lasting power supply and better software for running them.

    Those two things are holding most of our robotics back.