Lem from Robots-Dreams has written an excellent article for ROBOT Magazine on the first ever Kyosho Athlete Humanoid Cup. The event took place on December 10th in Tokyo, Japan. The robots competed in 5 meter sprints and in a 2 minute performance/demonstration category.

The fastest human controlled 5 meter sprint was from a modified Manoi-AT01 and clocked in at 11.540 seconds. The fastest robot in the autonomous sprint category was 1 minute 39.930 sec. Some of the robots took advantage of higher torque leg servos over the stock servos.

Interestingly enough, quite a few women competed. This seems to be unique to Japan.

Kyosho worked closely with Kondo and Tomotaka Takahashi to develop the Manoi AT01 humanoid robot.
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Here's the top 10 posts of 2006:

1. How to Build a Simple Robot – Beetle Robot
2. LEGO Creates New Version of Mindstorms!
3. Cornell Research into Dragonfly Micro-Air Vehicle (MAV)
4. Ticks beware: RC Truck Hacked for Pest Control
5. Antarctic Robot From Dartmouth
6. 10 Tips for Getting Started with Robotics
7. DEMO 2006 Video of Ugobe Pleo
8. Review of Microbric's Viper Robotics Development Kit
9. Innovation First Acquires VEX Line from Radio Shack
10. Ugobe Unveils Pleo, Another Robot Dino
    
    
    

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Well folks we've arrived at another year. I want to give a big shout-out to all the loyal readers of GoRobotics.net for making 2006 a great year, in spite of all the challenges. 2006 was a tough year for me and I'm sure you've noticed some big holes in the posting schedule – I got engaged, lost my father, and started graduate school. Thanks for sticking by me.

By the numbers 2006 brought us close to 200,000 visitors and almost half a million page views. 'theo jansen', 'lego mindstorms nxt', 'robonova', and 'pleo' were all big search terms. I also started a new blog about Ugobe's Pleo robot. We also moved to a bigger faster server.


So, here's to an even better 2007!



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