The robot community in Japan is never short of ingenuity, take this robot maid for example. This custom bot was built by Dr. GIY, a well respected member of the Robo-one scene. The first of the Doctor’s creations I saw live was an anthropomorphic robot cat that wowed the audience in a dance competition. It’s quite obvious he’s a wiz at making his creations dance. Watch her go.

According to Dr. GIY the choreography is not as smooth as he’d like it to be so he’ll be working on refining it. …

Japanese performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu takes her robot for a crawl in downtown Sydney, Australia. Crowds watch the bizarre sight of the life-like Japanese businessman in suit and tie slowly crawling on all fours along the pavement. The robot is a symbol of the Japan’s rigid Salaryman culture.
by itnsource on youtube 2006

Summer is cockroach season in Japan and these remote controlled robot cockroaches are the perfect way to freak out your loved ones who are terrified of them. There’s called Gokiraji from GOKIburi (cockroach) and RAJIkon (RC), and they’re 1,680 yen each. I wish they were a lot cheaper so I could buy a swarm of them.
via: JTT

This 4.9 ton, 12.5 foot (3.8 meter) metal monstrosity is Vaudeville, a project in progress by a small group of mecha enthusiasts called “Suidobashi Heavy Industry”. The single-pilot giant robot is controlled using a smartphone, master-slave control and also a Kinect sensor in the cockpit. Check out this video showing their work in progress.

It is truly amazing that a backyard project such as this could be of such high quality. The best thing about this project is that when it is finished you have a chance to own it. The …

Nobuhiro Takahashi is a researcher known for making high-tech devices for lonely people. He previous inventions include; Sense-Roid, a vest that allows you to know how it feels to hug yourself and robotic tongue that for kissing over the internet (videos below). Now he’s at it again, he’s created the world’s most realistic robot buttocks. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you, “Shiri”. (Japanese for butt)

So according to Takahashi and The University of Electrocommunication, this humanoid robot butt was made to explore innovative ways to use robotics in communication. They …

The world famous 1:1 Gundam made it’s return to Odaiba this spring. Youtube user Darwinfish105 has the best short videos of this beast. Even one with last weeks super-moon in the backdrop.

Watch as this mini-Transformer shape-shifts from vehicle to humanoid mode and even throws out an uppercut. This little Autobot was designed and built by Kenji Ishida while working with JS Robotics. Making a transforming robot is a lot more difficult than it seems. Mr. Ishida’s bot performs the transformation relatively quickly while maintaining balance. All this presented in a 2 min youtube video better than the last two Transformers films.

via: PlasticPals

A little over a year ago we told you about EngKey; the robot English teachers whose mission is to replaced all native English speaking human teachers in Korea in the next 2 to 4 years. These telepresence bots allow the Korean government the opportunity save money on expensive salaries by recruiting cheaper but qualified teachers in the Philippines to operate the bots from thousands of kilometer away.
Though they may be taking away human jobs, are they cool enough to put us to shame on the dance room? This youtube video …

So I’m doing my nightly youtube surfing, checking out some videos of International Robot Expo 2011 when I found this and my jaw dropped.

What the hell was that?! But then I thought to myself; I was there, I don’t remember seeing that particular “ROBOTOM” humanoid and none of the robot blogs I follow reported anything about any accidents, that would have definitely been big news. And was that a chainsaw that I heard? Why hell would there be a robot at an expo with a chainsaw? Then I saw “Botex” …

At the International Robot Exhibition 2011, robot makers Kokoro gave kids in a attendance the chance to play dentist with their dental training robot Simroid.

Simroid was nicknamed “Pain Girl” due to her sensitivity to pain and ability to notify dental trainees of her discomfort. She was modeled to look as close to a 28 year old Japanese woman as possible and responds to touch with human like movements and facial expressions. This so that the trainee will feel as if he/she is working with a real patient. She as also …