For Building DIY Droids, It Helps to Live In Japan

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @05:54AM 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.'"

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No thanks by sakdoctor · 2009-05-13 05:58 · Score: 4, Funny

Those aren't the droids I was looking for.
What's really going on in Japan hobbyist robotics by Animats · 2009-05-13 06:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

Terrible article. See Robots Dreams for what's really going in Japanese hobbyist robotics. Especially what's happening with small humanoid robot competitions. Obstacle courses are routine now.
This stuff is way ahead of the Lego Mindstorms, Battlebots, anf FIRST stuff you see in the US.
I'd like to see Big Dog balance technology scaled down to toy size. It's not inherently expensive. All the cleverness is in the software and the math.