Japan startup develops 'Gundam'-like robot with $3 mln price tag

Technology@lemmy.ml – 190 points – 9 months ago

Japan startup develops 'Gundam'-like robot with $3 mln price tag

Tokyo-based start-up Tsubame Industries has developed a 4.5-metre-tall (14.8-feet), four-wheeled robot that looks like "Mobile Suit Gundam" from the wildly popular Japanese animation series, and it can be yours for $3 million.

This is unfortunately a lot less impressive than it looks, since it's wheeled and not bipedal.

It's Guntank.

Poggggggggggggg

1 more...

"$3 mln" is somehow a lot less explanatory than "$3m"

I thought it was $3/min 🤷🏽‍♂️

$3 million / minute

I think it's to draw a distinction from the similar "milliard", which means "billion" in British English but has fallen out of fashion.

but has fallen out of fashion

It's a bit of a shame really, since it makes much more sense: How big is a billion?

I only go with SI units: Gigabucks

Anyone in possession of a billion dollars is a Gigabuckaroo

Didn’t they build this years ago? I remember the lame arse “fight” with the US robot company.

yes, like 10+ years ago.

Still a joke, not sure why they don't get a proper hydraulic control person involved in these projects.

I get the feeling that, seeing as hydraulics have been around for longer than robotics, it just isn't practicable to build a robot out of hydraulics - otherwise we'd have them already.

Nah, you can't beat the power density of hydraulics and never will unless room temp superconductors become a thing.

Big Dog from Boston Dynamic was hydraulic.

Going that size or bigger, hydraulics is a must.

The reason you don't see it is hydraulics is a completely different ball game.

Controls researchers stick with small and electronic, because that's what they know.

It's very rare to find a controls engineer that understands hydraulics.

And the hydraulics experts out there, don't have the background for sophisticated control theory.

3 more...

i think they had an idea, a good one, but then at the last moment realized that it was all too dangerous and expensive in practice.

then they tried doing some weird hybrid between “professional” wrestling and a documentary.

poor planning was the ultimate downfall. i had high hopes.

3 more...

Movements kinda slow to be any real threat, nice try Skynet.

Just an iteration. They'll be there in no time.

Looks more like the loader from Aliens, which (to me) is more interesting than Gundam.

I'd expect a full-scale gundam to cost more than 3 million dollar

Author needs to watch more Gundam

US vs Japan mech battle take 2?

I was so hype to watch two big ass robots do nothing to each other.... I'm down for another hour long video, regardless.

I dont know what i was really expecting from that fight but man was i disappointed. All the hype for what amounted to about a 5 second robot slap fight.