Robot Living

Here comes another robotic chef, this time in the form of Motoman your grill man, er, robot.  Unlike Chief Cook, who also plays Pong, Motoman  grills okonomiyaki to perfection.

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese dish made of a pan-fried batter cake and various ingredients you choose.

Motoman SDA10, from Yaskawa Electric, has 7 joints in each arm and one in the torso.  Designed to work next to humans, the robot is 4.5 ft tall and weighs 480 lbs.

No matter how skilled Motoman is, I doubt real chefs like Anthony Bourdain or Mario Batali would be caught dead cooking next to him.

Link via (Bornrich)

Tags: cooking, Japanese

Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata has created a new play called Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker).  The play recently premiered at Osaka University and featured two housekeeping robots.

In the play, the robots are forced to do boring work and one of them loses it’s motivation.

The Wakamaru model robots were designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and programmed with actual lines for the play.

Link via (BBC)

Remember the Robotic Chef that mad a mean omelette?  Well Chief Cook has learned some new skills.  This time he has learned to play Pong.

Shown here is a picture of the chef with his buddy Keepon.

Below is the video of Chief Cook playing Pong with his master.  Chief Cook tells his master, “You are a loser.” and dazzles the crowd before starting to take over the world.

Link via (Engadget)

The Mech RC is now available in the US for $599.

Included in this kit are 17 high torque metal gear servos,  a remote control unit, 3D visual software, lithium battery pack and charger and all the parts needed to build a crazy dancing robot.

Over 100 moves come pre-stored on the robot.  Unfortunately the software is not MAC compatible yet.

Available at Trossen Robotics.  Trossen offers other humanoid robots, but the price and degree of difficulty go way up.  The Mech RC is the cheapest programmable humanoid robot they offer (not counting iSobot).

Watch the robot bust a move in the videoafter the break.
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For all you Wall-E fans out there, iRobot has now made a Wall-E edition Roomba 530 available today.  Unfortunately the robot is only being released in Japan and at a cost of about $850. For that price we will just stick with getting the movie.

Head on over to Disney to play some Wall-E games such as Pop! or Trash Tower.  Or buy the movie from Disney here in it’s many variations, including a special 3 disc edition for $34.99.

Or head over to Amazon for the remote control Wall-E for around $40.  Or get the Ultimate Remote control Wall-E from Disney for about $240.

So many Wall-Es, so little time.

Update: Disney, Wall-E & NASA are letting kids 6-12 name the next Mars rover!
Check out all the details here.

Link via (Gizmodo)