The RoboBuilder robotics kits from a Korean company of the same name (or is it IRobou?) is now available for purchase from RobotShop. The kits, which are similar to the Bioloid robotics kits from Robotis, employ modular components, like motors and sensors, to allow builders to quickly create a wide variety of robotic creations. RoboBuilder touts features such as metal ball bearings, PID motor control for precise motion, and reverse/over voltage protection. The kits also come with distance and sound sensors.

The basic RoboBuilder kit starts at $349 and goes all the way up to $3,000 for the Expert kit. Have any of our readers played with the kits yet? Let us know how they are by leaving a comment.

You can check out a video of the RoboBuilder humanoid model after the break.

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The Tech Shop in Menlo Park, CA is offering a class on how to build a 60-pound combat robot.

Here is your chance to build your own fire-spewing, buzz-saw wielding combat robot with the help and guidance of veteran combat robot builders!

In this 2-day full-weekend class, you and your team member will learn to create a 60-pound fighting robot platform with help from the world’s best combat robot builders.

The $595 registration fee allows two team members to attend and a $995 materials fee covers supplies for creating your own machine of mass destruction.

Everyone needs a little LEGO love, every now-and-then, so here’s some nice robots built by Jas Nagra.

LEGO Mech built by Jas Nagra

LEGO Mecha built by Jas Nagra

[Via Brothers Brick]

At the 18th annual International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC), Georgia Tech came away as the winner, with prize money of $27,000. The event, which was held on July 28th – Aug. 1st, 2008, marked the conclusion of the 4th Mission of the IARC, with a new mission being released for the 2009 competition. The competition, which as been existance since 1991 (the creator of the competition, Robert Michelson, coined the term ‘Aerial Robotics’), and has long been known as a grueling, and nearly impossible, robotics competition.

The forth mission was divided into 4 different levels – a 3km ingress path, locating a specific building in a town environment, flying into, or launching a sensor into, the building and sending back pictures, and finally doing all three steps in under 15 minutes. Several teams were able to complete 3 of the first 4 steps, but no team was able to complete all the steps in under 15 minutes, the “winner take all” requirement. The judges divided the total prize winnings of $80,000 USD between 10 teams, with Georgia Tech taking the most money.

The new 2009 competition will be announced soon. Based on previous competitions, it will be interesting to see the level of difficulty that the new 5th mission will require.

Check out the Robots Podcast

For those of you that just can’t get enough robot news, you should definitely check out the Robots Podcast. The show is now produced in part by Markus Waible, of Talking Robots fame, who kindly sent us a note letting us know about the show. Markus also writes for the IEEE Automaton blog, which is on our feedlist, and another great news resource.

The most recent episode of the Robots Podcast features Steven Rainwater from robots.net and Mikell Taylor with the Automaton blog and Bluefin Robotics, a maker of AUVs and a competitor to iRobot. They discuss the online robotics community, blogging about robots, and life at Bluefin. Steven, if you’re reading this, I do have one nit to pick – GoRobotics.net actually started before robots.net, but we’ll overlook the slip.

A new Robots Podcast is released every two weeks, with the next episode slated to appear on August 15th. In the meantime, you can go and check out the four previous episodes. The site also has a growing robotics forum you can check out.