It is exactly the catchiest name I’ve heard (but volumes better than "Qrio"), but Wakamaru is the latest in Japan’s bid to take over the world with robots. That and help out their rapidly aging population.

Wakamaru, weighing in at 30kg, 3ft tall, and anywhere from $9,000 to $14,000 USD (Wired says $9,000, BBC says $14,000), better be something special. And, if all the claimed features are true, it is.

Wakamaru’s website has pictures and videos of the friendly yellow robot. It has a claimed battery life of 2 hrs and a slew of sensors, including 2 cameras (front mounted and omnidirectional), 4 microphones, and touch sensors. He also has 2 4 DOF arms. But, before you rush out and buy one take note that it won’t work well on surfaces with more than 1cm of unevenness (read: needs very smooth floors).

The folks at MontaVista Software (what’s powering Wakamaru) say, "Its primary goal for the Japanese market is to provide companionship … be with (patients) like a health-care provider."

Also of note is the website of Toshiyuki Kita, the designer of the robot.

Oh, and it’s Linux powered, so I fully expect to see a wave of hacks coming from across the pond.

Google News provides an excellent roundup of articles about Wakamaru.

I was checking out Servo Magazine’s website the other day when low-and-behold I came across their web forums. I was very surprised to see that it’s actually pretty active. This surprises me because in the 6 years that I’ve been running this website, I’ve never seen a successful web forum relating to robotics. The community seems much more focused on local clubs and various e-mail lists.

Is this a sign that the community is becoming more "global" and less region specific?

 Ok, I’ll retract some of my words. The Parallax forums are also very active.

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Here’s your chance to win $5,000! The Lantronix wireless design contest, sponsored by, you guessed it, Lantronix, the makers of our favorite really small webserver. The goal is to "Wirelessly network-enable your machine or device with a Lantronix WiPort™ … and you could win $5,000."

They’re also giving the first 50 registered contestants 50% of their WiPort dev kit. Contestants are also entered into a monthly drawing - this month the prize is a PSP.

The WiPort offers serial to 802.11b, TCP/IP stack, web interface, 11 GPIO pins, dual serial ports, and 128bit WEP. The development kit goes for $299 on Mouser. The WiPort by itself retails at $119 for single quantities. The XPort (the wired version) goes for $49.

Not bad at all. So, get out there and web-enable your robot. Maybe you’ll win $5,000. Just be sure to let us know about it when it happens!


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Here’s a quick roundup on robot related stuff in the social bookmarking scene (aka, Digg and Delicious).

• Robot spy plane – Shape-shifting like Odo! Well, not quite. "Small robotic spy-planes have been developed that use shape-shifting wings to switch from being stable gliders to ultra-manoeuvrable fliers."
  "… during flight tests they have been capable of performing three continuous 360° rolls in 1 second."
  
  Apparently, all it can do now is navigate waypoints. The folks working on it hope to have it autonomously using the enhanced agility sometime in the near future. There’s also video of the plane flying.
  
  
  
• "World’s Smallest" RC airplane. Very small. Seriously. Doesn’t appear to be very hackable though. Just way too small.
  
  
• Fire breathing "robot" - looks more like a really dangerous statue than anything else. It’s probably on its way to Tokyo by now to cause death and destruction.
  
  
• Robot "attacks" Japan prime minister – Seriously folks, have you actually looked at the video?? It looks completely contrived. It turns around and sprays some smoke towards the guy – but everyone is laughing. Totally planned. On a side note, it looks like this robot  has a paintball weapon of some sort.
  
  
• And finally, the crazy Army guy that’s building a full sized Mech. ‘“Growing up, it’s every kid’s dream to have a giant — I hate to say robot, because it’s not, it’s a mech — every kid’s dream,” says Owens Jr.’
  
  Carlos’ website has more information, including videos. It’s also been picked up on several other sites.
  
  

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*bump*

Ok, for those of you that visit Slashdot regularly, you probably know you can add certain "Slashboxes" to your main page. The current Slashbox list is pretty comprehensive, HOWEVER, GoRobotics.net isn’t on there, and that needs to change!

Right under the list it says, "If you … have a reasonable suggestion for new RSS feeds, please contact CowboyNeal." So, I’m suggesting you all do just that. Please e-mail CowboyNeal and say, "Hey CowboyNeal, how about adding GoRobotics.net to your list of Slashboxes! The URL for the RSS feed is http://www.robotshop.com/gorobotics/index2.php?option=com_rss&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1"

Let’s see what happens. Thanks.


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