You might remember Robosaurus, created 17 years ago by Monster Robots in Southern California. The 40-foot-high, 31-ton behemoth quickly became famous for crushing cars and breathing fire all over the country, before dwelling in the land of obscurity. Apparently, it’s current owner or owners are finally sick of burning and crushing all manner of large things. Robosaurus will be auctioned off during the annual Barrett-Jackson car auction in Scottsdale, Arizona between January 12 to 20.

Interestingly, the metal beast is actually controlled by a pilot who occupies a cockpit inside the dinosaur’s head. All I can say is, that Pilot has incredible self control to have not gone all Godzilla on a small town or two. Just pray you don’t see this thing and it’s new owner coming down your street anytime soon.

[Robosaurus] VIA [Cnet]

Best-Selling Mystery writer Kyotaro Nishimura has his own museum. Now, thanks to Fujitsu, he has a robot to go with it. Jointly developed by Fujitsu Frontech and Fujitsu Laboratories, the robot will act as a visitors’ guide at the Museum beginning September 21. Enon will autonomously move to the entrance of the museum to greet guests, then guide visitors through the exhibits using its voice, gestures or its LCD screen. It will even play video greetings from Mr. Nishimura.

And if after all of this you still don’t think that Mr. Nishimura is important, you can take a quiz related to his exploits via Enon’s LCD chest. If you answer all of the questions correctly, you get…

(Drumroll please…)

A commemorative certificate from the Museum.

Joy.

[Frontech] VIA [Engadget]

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has always been on the bleeding edge of what’s new and techy, all the way from Segway Polo to Kathy Griffin. So it’s great to hear that he’s looking to the personal robotics market to develop in much the same way as the personal computer market did, through easy programmability. Here’s an excerpt from an eWeek article about an event he spoke at this past weekend:

Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak says one of the primary emerging technologies that is capturing his imagination these days is area of robotics and how artificial intelligence will be applied on those types of systems. Wozniak said he hopes that someday the robotics field will take a page from the personal computer era by creating robots that are easily programmable by users to perform specific tasks rather than solely focusing on creating system that are preprogrammed to perform specific functions. “People want things that are useful as opposed to things that do a lot of little things that we call artificial intelligence,” said Wozniak.

First Bill Gates, now Woz? Hmm, maybe we’re actually on to something here…

[ eWeek ] VIA [ Robots.net ]

And he just may be. Apparently the folks at www.greathouselabs.org take him and some other heavy duty bots on tour. He has toured and had gigs at Burning Man as well as other venues. He operates with twelve separate movements that can be programmed or operated manually. Plus, his mouth moves to any soundtrack placed in his MP3 player. You just know he has sung his share of Heavy Metal.

The kids love him. Especially when he sings anything from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Adults like the fact that Robobust recites classic movie lines from such movies as MommyDearest. “NO MORE WIRE HANGERS”. The best part? He is capable of shooting fire.

Video of Robobust in action and Links after the jump.

(Read more…)

Honda’s Asimo is back after taking a fall last year and literally breaking his face, when he fell down some stairs.

He is returning to the Disneyland stage, running at about 4 mph. Apparently, he is also doing a lot of interacting with a live host in the Say Hello to Honda’s ASIMO show which started on August 29. The show demonstrates all of ASIMO’s new technological advances, including his new speed and artificial intelligence capabilities for human interaction.

It is the only permanent installation in North America where you can see Honda’s robot, who is smarter and more mobile then ever before. ASIMO continues to advance closer to in-home applications.

Nice to see one of our favorites back in action and better than ever.

[Gizmodo]

Spheres make so much sense both practically and aesthetically that it’s really too bad that spherical shapes are so tricky to implement when it comes to robots. Leave it to Burning Man to give a grant to a group of guys who have designed spherical autonomous robots that use GPS guidance to interact with each other in a swarm… “The SWARM of autonomous beings by their very nature will have emergent and complex behavior. They will flock, flirt, dance and interact, and their actions will surprise and astonish even us, their creators. They are simple, but together they will behave in ways more complex than we can predict. A lot like LIFE.” Check out this video of the prototype in action:

Click To Play

So far, not bad. The spherical bots have a non-rolling interior, and control themselves with a computer guided counterweight. You can find a computer rendering of how the finished products should look and act here (direct *.MOV link).

[ OrbSwarm ] VIA [ Robot Living ]

The folks at Wilesco toy steam engines have been hard at work on a new steam powered bot that harkens back to the old days. Their steam engines are built just like they were a hundred years ago, to power vehicles, workshops, and generators. In short, this bot is powered by fire and water.

This model is being made in Germany and should be headed our way sometime around mid September of this year. Available colors will be red, blue, green and black.

While he may not be the fastest bot in the world, the fact that he runs on steam power, combined with his great retro look is enough to make me want one yesterday! Proof that Old Skool is still cool. It’s not always about batteries and electric.

[ Product Page ]

By Evan Ackerman

We here at BotJunkie are pretty serious about robot coverage, but we’ve got nothing on these guys, who dressed themselves up in cardboard robot suits and beat the nuts and bolts out of each other on the streets of San Francisco. Why? Because they could. Robot awesome points +10.

[ Cardboard Robot Rumble Coverage ] VIA [ Neatorama ]