Diminutive automated wrestling recently went technology mad at the Korakuen Stadium hall, which played host to Japan’s twice-yearly Robo-One Championships and a gamut of mini robotic creations that took to the arena of destruction to battle it out for top honours before an adoring technophile audience.
Tokyo event showcases battling robot rivals... though not quite as good as this one. Credit: Atari, Gracinha & Marco/Flickr.
The contestants competed across a variety of ‘weight’ divisions, which saw the likes of “Leghorn,” a chicken styled martial arts robot, beating seven shades of servo oil out of karate suit-wearing “Automo03-Sandan” for the featherweight title, while Teakwon-V raced to top honours against all-comers in the lightweight category.
And it’s not just simple robotic glory that powers the creators of these battling mini mechs, with Teakwon-V engineer Jeon Young Sun receiving a first prize of 1 million yen (around $10,000 USD) after capturing the event’s lightweight title.
“Japanese children have all been brought up watching animation and there is a lot of interest in robot battles, so this Robo-One competition is all about making this a reality,” enthused Robo-One committee Chairman Terukazu Nishimura in a Reuters report.
In the heavyweight division, the formidable sounding “King Kaiser,” an aggressive robotic hound, mauled the competition before eventually also overcoming the efforts of Teakwon-V in the event’s All Class division standoff.
“You see a lot of technological breakthroughs in these kind of fighting robots. This competition, for example, happens twice a year, but every time we gather you witness here some incredible technological revolution in robotics,” commented King Kaiser creator Naoki Maru. “It’s just great that in this field the ‘hobbyists’ develop and improve their robots faster than in the corporate world.”
112 robotic competitors entered this particular Robo-One Championship, before that figure was eventually whittled down to 45 on the final day of competition.
Japan is presently considered to be a leading centre of excellence when it comes to robot technology, with the country reportedly playing host to some 40 percent of the world’s robots and providing a great base for amateur robot creators. Conversely, corporate manufacturers continue to distance themselves from cutting-edge robotic development due to associated costs.
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