+ - Starting the Machine Revolution now in Japan!->
Submitted
by
Hanike
Hanike writes "According to The Verge, Japanese hi-tech company Suidobashi Heavy Industry is developing a 13-foot, diesel-powered real Mecha robot called Kurata!
"Japanese engineers are working on everything from robots that walk like humans, to robots to help you in the lab, to robot babies for studying human development, but where are the mechs? Thankfully, Wired Japan shows us that Suidobashi Heavy Industry is on the case, having completed a 13-foot-tall, 4.4-ton, diesel-powered robot called Kuratas. The two-man team — artist Kogoro Kurata and robotics researcher Wataru Yoshizaki — isn't stopping there, either. Suidobashi wants to mass produce, starting at the low price of $1.35 million.
So what do you get for the money? Kuratas has over 30 hydraulic joints that allow it to freely move its arms, legs, and torso. It can fire water bottle rockets and fireworks, and its 6,000 round-per-minute BB gattling guns are controlled with the pilot’s smile; part of Yoshizaki’s V-Shido (read like bushido, as in "way of the samurai") control system. In order to get around, the four-legged mech uses ordinary wheels, but the Suidobashi team wants to get it walking in order to navigate uneven terrain. If you’d like to see more, you can check out the rest of Wired’s photographs of the team’s garage, and check below for video of the prototype's unveiling this past weekend in Chiba, as well as promotional videos — complete with CG of the robot driving through Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.""
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"Japanese engineers are working on everything from robots that walk like humans, to robots to help you in the lab, to robot babies for studying human development, but where are the mechs? Thankfully, Wired Japan shows us that Suidobashi Heavy Industry is on the case, having completed a 13-foot-tall, 4.4-ton, diesel-powered robot called Kuratas. The two-man team — artist Kogoro Kurata and robotics researcher Wataru Yoshizaki — isn't stopping there, either. Suidobashi wants to mass produce, starting at the low price of $1.35 million.
So what do you get for the money? Kuratas has over 30 hydraulic joints that allow it to freely move its arms, legs, and torso. It can fire water bottle rockets and fireworks, and its 6,000 round-per-minute BB gattling guns are controlled with the pilot’s smile; part of Yoshizaki’s V-Shido (read like bushido, as in "way of the samurai") control system. In order to get around, the four-legged mech uses ordinary wheels, but the Suidobashi team wants to get it walking in order to navigate uneven terrain. If you’d like to see more, you can check out the rest of Wired’s photographs of the team’s garage, and check below for video of the prototype's unveiling this past weekend in Chiba, as well as promotional videos — complete with CG of the robot driving through Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.""
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