I have not been able to find the robots that are able to serve me drinks or play ping pong yet.Though, I have found two other companies which are showing off their smaller robots and both have some skills.
Probably best to start off with the good one, the MuRata bot, which is bluetooth enabled via a wand, which they use to control the bot and tell it which direction they would like it to go on its bicycle. It seemed to do it fairly well even standing straight up on the bike (which I am jealous of still). It’s able to stay straight up while not in motion because of it’s built in gyro and motion sensing, so as it is about to fall one way a small fan spins in his body to level it back out. Also, other commands through the wand, are gyroscopic, which if tilted forward that tells the robot to bike forward, same thing with reverse, flip the wand upside down and backwards and the robot will pedal backwards with no issues.
Now for the bad, Tosy’s mRobo was possibly the worst of the show, as it appears they spent more money having Justin Bieber quickly show off the robot than developing it. The robot is able to do a slight dance were it moves it’s feet (which have wheels on the bottom) back and forth as well as move its one arm awkwardly. Lastly, the robot also features a speaker in the middle to play your favorite song which it will dance to. So, in case you wanted your very own useless robot they are going to take this mRobo out of prototype phase and into your home by the end of the year for a cool price of only $199!
In conclusion, movies from the 80’s showed we would have flying cars and robot servants by 2010 and it’s now 2012 and we don’t seem to have much making it into the consumer market and the bots that have actual useful features can unfortunately, only do 1 or 2 things. I guess I will continue to dream of a robot servant future.
Chris Hernandez
the mRobo looks like it has a Nerf penis that the lady is holding.