Tickle-me Tichno

Osaka robotics startup Vstone and Japan Remote Control Co. recently unveiled a kid-sized robot called Tichno that can play soccer, albeit slowly, balance on one leg and do calisthenics.

It came out a winner at the RoboCup Japan Open in Numazu last month.

At 130 cm tall (4.2'), Tichno is designed to be the same size as a third-grade Japanese elementary school student. It weighs 26 kg (56 lbs) has 22 degrees of mechanical freedom. He also has newly developed knee servo motors for exceptional stability. It has the same controller as Vstone's Robovie-X tabletop humanoid and can be manipulated with a gamepad.

Vstone plans to equip the bots with voice-recognition technology and sell them to companies as marketing gimmicks. They'll be available for rental at a daily fee of around $5,000.

Via Robot Watch

The Osaka Kid: better, stronger, faster

He's back, and better than ever.

The wizards at Team Osaka, mentioned in an earlier post, have again unveiled an improved version of their champion soccer-playing robot, Vision. The past three versions came out winners in their RoboCup robot soccer tournament category. RoboCup's purpose is to develop a team of robot footballers that can beat the best humans at the sport by 2050 (and then take over the world...maybe).

Vision 4G can run 30% faster than its previous incarnation, its joints have 40% stronger torque, its has a lighter CPU and a new forward-looking camera, in addition to its 360-degree head cam, to better track the ball. There's a cool video of 4G showing off here.