In addition to plastic food (a must for any self-respecting Japanese restaurant) this neighborhood has everything else you might need to get into the restaurant business.
I love the idea that I could show up here in the morning with a few million yen and a wheelbarrow and have a lunch counter up and running in time for the next day’s rush.
I didn’t fabricate those lederhosen shots. At some point during her presentation, this woman started talking about how some of their robots were built in Germany and she showed a little video of them being assembled. (Oddly, the factory robots were built in a factory staffed by regular-old German humans. I guess it’s good that the robots can’t make themselves.)
Then she gave a bit of a flourish, and up walked this horn trio. And they played. And they were pretty good. Of course, if I spoke Japanese, I might have more of an idea why they were there.
Finally, here are a bunch of clips of other robots spliced together. It’s worth the wait!
My favorite part of the exhibit wasn’t part of robot expo at all, it just happened to be under the same roof. There were many many machines which sort and organize screws, bolts and other thingamabobs in order to hand them over to nail guns, robots, or clumsy humans.
Most of them worked by vibrating things randomly until they fell into place. Some, though, had optics in order to organize things properly, like this one which filters dice by color.
This one just sits there until you rub its head and then it opens its eyes and wiggles happily. Sounds silly, but I really wanted to take it home with me.
This one got some press in the US as well. It’s for training dental assistants — it groans if you mis-aim the drill.
Brought to you by the makers of Hello Kitty. Make of that what you will.
Many of the wheeled robots came across as essentially remote-controlled forklifts with faces drawn on the front. It’s possible that they were autonomous and smart, but this wasn’t obvious from the sterile demonstrations. A laundry basket full of tennis balls could really spice up this show next year.
This one is meant to act as a receptionist — the brochure placed a lot of emphasis on its ‘Low Center of Gravity’ from which we can easily guess what happened during last year’s show.
There were a fair number of smallish humanoid robots which were cute and nice to watch.
But, watching them step nervously across tables, or tip over, or dance awkward, useless dances, I’m really starting to wonder what the big idea was with bipedality anyway. It’s the robots with six legs, or with tank treads, that can really get around.
And, don’t even get me started on bilateral symmetry. If you want your machine to really know what’s happening, you need to move beyond the single axis:
About a third of the exhibit hall was devoted to giant manufacturing robots. Most of them were turned on, waving around, assembling cars and appliances that only they could see, so I appreciated watching these guys in action on an actual autobody. The car looked quite a bit like the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
Here is a movie of three robots working on an assembly line. The first two assemble, and the third is quality control. (There was a fourth in charge of shuttling parts around but it was turned off while I was filming.)
The sight was a bit poignant. When they started out they had actual raw materials, and were making things. But when the materials ran out, they just kept turning, twisting, assembling even though their hands were empty. Among other things, this forces me to question the judgment of Quality Bot.
Say, is that a Swiss Alphorn Trio on its way into the robot exhibition?
