I hate to quibble, but is that robot wearing a red mask while wielding nunchaku? Oh noes! But still, TURTLE POWER!

Catch the other two Bots With Stuff from this week over on The Shoebox Blog.

[ Bots With Stuff ]

From Wikipedia:

Yatter-Bark: This dog-shaped robot was designed by Gan’s father as a prototype rescue robot, but was never constructed. It is finally completed by Gan in the first episode and is immediately put into action against the Dorombo gang. It is fitted with a siren and a bell like other rescue vehicles, and also a joystick (all of these are operated by the robot itself) which control the various other features of the robot. Unlike the “time bokan” series of time machines in the original show, it does not provide a cockpit for the crew–the robot is clever enough to obey the words of the Yatterman duo, who simply hang on to its sides.

The robot itself does not pack much of a punch in terms of combat strength (save for its nostrils which fire iron pellets, and the two firehoses on its back). In fact, it is often temporarily defeated each time by the villains’ mecha in later episodes. One element, though, remains the key feature to the heroes’ turning point: a bone-shaped power pack, known as “Mecha-Tonic” as Gan has named it, is usually fed to the dog robot on its very point of total defeat, allowing a sudden outburst of strength to ward off a deadly blow from the enemy mecha. It will then proudly announce (with the aid of three tiny dog-shaped robots popping out of its chest and do a drum roll) and perform its special attack–a large group of miniature robots, usually taking the shapes of land-based animals, that comes out of its mouth. Then these mini-robots will attack the Dorombo’s mecha by taking it apart piece by piece with their concealed weapons, causing the enemy’s mecha to explode spectacularly, leaving just pieces of scrap metals, and a very dirty, tattered villain trio behind.

I don’t get it at all, but the live action movie has already been released in Japan.

[ Yatterman Movie ] VIA [ Robots-Dreams ]

As part of a talk on robotics that robotics expert David Calkins gave at ETech this week, he commented (as he has before) that the definition of robot is completely a matter of perspective. Many technologies that we don’t really think of as robotic would seem absolutely so to someone from the recent past. To someone who was used to washing clothes and dishes by hand, wouldn’t washing machines and a dishwashers be robots? And cars, with technologies like cruise control, definitely would be considered as such.

A research partnership from the UK has recently demonstrated a system called Sentience, which takes cruise control beyond the adaptive type that you can already get in some cars and takes it to the next level… A level that might get you to call your car a robot. Sentience lives on your cell phone and connects to your car’s ECU (the computer that controls the engine). You put in your route, and Sentience analyzes it for traffic, gradients, curves, speed limits, junctions, crossings, speed bumps, and traffic lights. It then takes over your adaptive cruise system and controls acceleration, speed, and deceleration the entire way. All you have to do is steer. It even wires itself into traffic light systems to predict when a light is about to turn red, and preemptively decelerates. Besides giving you the option of being more or less entirely asleep the whole way, Sentience is able to get between 5 and 24 percent better fuel efficiency, depending on traffic.

So, when will these robot cars start mowing down little kids at crosswalks? Look for it in new cars sometime around 2012.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

This “Guard Dragon” robot, the Banryu-T73S, was designed by Tmsuk back in in 2003. That’s ancient times in internet years, so I’m just going to have to say that according to sources of information that may now be defunct, the T73S was supposed to be kind of like an Aibo, except a dragon instead of a dog, and designed to guard your house instead of play with you. Because dragons are scary. This robot is scaring you, isn’t it? Isn’t it? I mean, it’s chubby. What if it steps on your toe?

Fortunately, it does plenty more than look threatening. It has more than 50 built-in sensors for things like light, sound, temperature, and even odor. It can be teleoperated and functions like an answering machine. It even has a special “pets mode” to entertain your dog (good luck with that). 12 degrees of freedom enable it to walk around and wag its tail, and it stands nearly 3 feet tall and weighs 77 pounds. It does not appear to be able to breathe fire (sad), and cost some $18000 back when it was new. Only 50 were made, though, so good luck finding one to guard your house today.

[ Tmsuk T73S ]

Before developing a little robot on wheels that whistles at you and spits nets, Tmsuk constructed a robot that was able to dispense justice a little more, shall we say, directly. Called the T-52 Enryu (it means something like “rescue dragon”), it’s essentially a little tank with 10 foot robot arms that’s designed to rape and pillage help rescue people from car accidents and earthquake debris and stuff, something that the Japanese are quite concerned about (understandably). Enryu weighs nearly six tons, and each arm can lift about 1100 pounds. It looks like it’s set up to be teleoperated with a pair of waldoes (good story, btw, you should read it), or there’s a cab where the operator can sit and engage in wanton destruction rescue operations from up close.

The T-52 is from back in 2004, but there’s an upgraded version (the T-53) that’s stronger, smaller, and more mobile, and has actually participated in earthquake recovery operations.

No word on price or availability, but you probably have to be Sigourney Weaver to qualify.

[ Tmsuk ]

After a long wait, BattleBots is finally heading back to TV. Maybe. From April 21 – 26, BattleBots will be holding (and taping) Pro, College, and High School events here in San Francisco. While the high school and college events will be 120 pound middleweights, the pros will be fighting with gigantic 220 pound heavyweights, all of which are required to have active weapons systems (i.e. no more wedges).

Beyond a place and time for the competition itself, nobody seems sure exactly what the deal is going to be, especially when it comes to getting BattleBots on TV. When we first reported that the show was going to be resurrected, it was supposed to be coming back to ESPN (according to Popular Mechanics). Now, BattleBots is “currently finalizing negotiations” with an unspecified network, which makes me think that whatever they had going with ESPN probably fell through to some extent. So, although all of the matches are going to be taped for TV, it remains to be seen whether or not you and I are going to be able to actually watch any of them.

Meantime, if you’re looking for combat robots, RoboGames 2009 is open to the public and taking place in San Francisco June 12 – 14. We’ll be bringing you live coverage of the event (of course!), and you can check out our videos from last year here.

[ BattleBots ] VIA [ RFL ]

When we posted about the robots feature in the Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog, the above picture caught my eye. It’s the Bino3 security robot, designed to provide remote automated surveillance in place of a security guard. Its most striking feature is of course its vision system, which includes two telephoto and two wide angle lenses, enabling it to record a 180 degree field of view and details simultaneously in stereo 3D. Bino3 navigates autonomously, and is able to follow specific directions by reading QR codes on the floor.

There aren’t many more details, but from the video, it sounds like Bino3 comes with some kind of warning siren, but the video cuts off before we get to see it deploy any weaponry.

VIA [ Robot-Watch (Translated) ]

UAVs are valuable assets, and not just for taking out terrorists… There are plenty of situations in which regular, non-creepy people like you and me could use some real time short range aerial surveillance. The LP960 UAV, designed by Lehmann Aviation, gives you just about everything you could ask for in a package that fits into a suitcase. It’s robust, easy to fly (it self stabilizes and includes an autopilot system), easy to crash (that’s how you land it), and carries a 12 megapixel camera with a streaming video downlink, soon to be available in HD.

Although it is a consumer UAV, it’s not cheap, and at $17,000 is priced more like the military hardware that it emulates. Better start saving.

[ Lehmann Aviation ] VIA [ Engadget ]

This robot, called “Saya,” is supposed to start teaching primary school in Japan. All by herself. She can take attendance, speak several languages, display facial expressions, and even get angry, a trait which I’m guessing will come in quite handy. I hope she runs on batteries, ’cause if she can be unplugged, I doubt she’ll last very long in a classroom full of elementary school kids. She might have more success in high school, though, especially if she dresses like she did at Wired’s NextFest:

Aaaaand I’ve just given BotJunkie a new Uncanny Valley tag. But seriously, I wonder if Japanese kids will be creeped out by Saya? Or is Japan just so much more technologically advanced than we are that it’ll be completely normal to them? If Saya does end up being perceived as normal, I’d be curious as to whether she/it qualifies as ‘teacher’ normal, or ‘overhead projector’ normal…

[ Telegraph ] VIA [ Space Daily ]

You’d like to have all kinds of special things to put on this robot USB flash drive, wouldn’t you? Yeah, if only you were important enough. But that’s okay, your newest robot friend won’t judge you. When his little eyes light up as you transfer all of that crap that you call “data” into his 1 gig chest, it’s not because he’s reading every last bit of it and deciding whether or not you’re worth sparing when the revolution comes.

And the answer is no, no you’re not.

The USB Robot flash drive is available in blue, green, or black, and costs $15.

[ USB Robot ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

Thanks Andrew!