Spotted: Ancient robot blueprint

This rare manuscript was published in 1796. It contains instructions on how to make karakuri ningyo, the clockwork dolls regarded as Japan's first robots.

I was surprised to stumble upon it at a very interesting place in Nagano called the Matsumoto Timepiece Museum. Opened in 2002, the museum has over 300 classic timepieces including Chinese, British, German and French clocks, marine chronometers, pocket watches, and clocks from Japan's Edo period (1600-1867), known as wadokei. The latter include some rather exotic shaku-dokei (pillar clocks) and candle clocks.

The manuscript is called Karakuri Zui (sometimes read as Kikou Zui) or "Illustrated Machinery." It was written by Hanzo Hosokawa, a mechanical engineer, astronomer and inventor from the domain of Tosa on Shikoku Island. The three-volume treatise details how to make four kinds of wadokei clocks and nine types of karakuri dolls including the famous tea-serving doll. Known as Japan's oldest mechanical engineering manuscript, the book has meticulously written notes on how to dress the dolls in kimono.

In Japan, proper engineering has always looked good - even in 1796.

Robot Museum, we hardly knew ye

Sad news for robot fans: operator Gyrowalk has announced it will close the Robot Museum in Nagoya at the end of the month due to lack of visitors. It was opened a year ago on the strength of the popularity of the robots at the 2005 Aichi Expo, held nearby.

The museum was busy every time I went there. But visitor numbers did not meet the annual 400,000 expected by the company. High overheads were probably a big factor - the place has lots of staff and is located in the expensive Sakae downtown area in Nagoya. It was an excellent museum, though, and had a large retail area, event space and exhibitions gallery featuring a colorful robot chronology wall, rare SF magazines and real robots.

Gyrowalk also runs the RoboCafe robot store in Osaka, but that has shut its doors for the time being. Last I heard it was to reopen following renovations but the closure of the Robot Museum probably means that won't happen.

Gyrowalk's woes show how hard it is to transform robot dreams into profit-making reality. U.S. robot firms like iRobot have generally been more successful at marketing non-industrial robots (like Roomba) than the Japanese because they are so focused on practical applications instead of fantasy. Still, as the first of its kind in the world the museum was a great achievement and a fine tribute to an amazing technology. It's a pity that it went so soon.

23-foot, fire-breathing robot art

It's three stories tall. It breathes fire. It has a baby's face.

Giant Torayan may be awkward at cocktail parties, but it keeps the conversation flowing. It's certainly one of the most striking pieces of Japanese robot art I've come across.

Sculptor Kenji Yanobe, known for mind-bending installations that incorporate subculture icons, created this titan in 2003 to give kids a thrill. Its "command device," also a baby's head, contains a computer that only responds to children's voices, giving them the reins to a pretty impressive flamethrower. Yanobe calls Torayan "the child's ultimate weapon."

Yanobe's work recently came up in a blog by Robot Museum in Nagoya President Masayoshi Ishiko, who thinks Torayan would be a great ambassador to promote Japanese robot culture in China! Shock and awe indeed.

Ishiko-san has told me about his big plans for robots in Japan on several occasions. Think traveling robot circuses and the like. I hope he branches out to the Tokyo area - his company Gyro Walk also runs the popular RoboCafe in Osaka.

Speaking of Kansai, if Kobe is to get its own giant robot, q.v., Tokyo needs one too. Torayan is perfect.

Robocandy

This, gentle reader, is robot omiyage.

Omiyage are souvenirs, a de rigueur gift for colleagues if you're a salaryman on a business trip. They're usually chocolates and the like.

Never little robot buns...until now.

Thanks to the new Robot Museum in Nagoya, which I finally visited. The organizers really did their homework and have put together a very impressive multimedia chronology of famous anthropomorphic machines fictional and real, from Hadaly of Tomorrow's Eve to Honda's Asimo and beyond. A highlight of the gallery is the actual Wabot 1, the first full-sale humanoid robot, developed in 1973 by Prof. Ichiro Kato of Waseda University.

The place is more than a museum. There's also an event space that accommodates visiting robots, as well as a large "robot department store" on the ground floor. Everything robotic, from toys and robot kits to t-shirts and candies, is on offer. Thousands of customers throng the aisles on weekends; a good chunk of them are gaijin.

The manju bun above is part of a slew of Robot Museum merchandise for sale. Comes in this here package.

The taste? Milky-sweet, with a touch of silicon.