14 DAY TRIAL // If you are among the robot aficionados, then you'd love this for sure. During Tokyo's 12th Robo-One Grand Championship match, the robotic hell broke loose. Reuters reports on thousands of mini bots that sang, barked, kicked and more, all just to be voted the world's robo-champ.
The Championship gathered a lot of two-legged robots, but only the best ones actually made it among the twenty-five finalists, where the bots had to knock one another out of the ring. The thing is none of the robots had super power jet engines, sensors or else, as they were developed by amateurs. Based on pure imagination, the robots were developed by children, robot fans, homemakers or people that had no connection whatsoever with the high tech robotry area.
Just as Reuters puts it, even if Japan is known to be the proud home of more than 40% of the world's robots, it should also be known as the land where every robo geek has the right to place its steel beast in the ring. There's no blood, pain or else, so it's better than real RAW! However, this wasn't the case as the spectators got to see small silly bots that either worn penguin heads or sang " We wish you a Merry Christmas". Cute, huh?
So, besides the fun and all, the event has proven the fact that there are a lot of people willing to invest serious money in developing their own biped furious robots out of nothing extremely sophisticated, but just some cameras, motors, sensors and wires.
Reuters also reported that keeping the balance while punching and dodging, as well as getting up when being pushed by the opponent were also conditions to win the tournament. No one seemed to be bothered about the amateurism. In fact, it seem "Companies can't make money making robots like these, the future of robotics depends on amateurs," as Teukarzu Nishimura, chairman of the Robo-One committee concluded.
Apparently, the number of robot hobbyists is much larger than thought and it will surely gets even higher with so many things improving in the robotic area. Just as Maru, the designer of the former Robo-One champion said: "You cannot win the tournament without the help of a major innovation every six months. You don't see that kind of speed anywhere else."
Once again, robo-fighting rules!
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