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Robotics Japan Technology

Giant Gundam Robot In Japan Makes Its First Moves (popularmechanics.com) 68

A giant Gundam in Japan's Port of Yokohama is now able to "pick up its legs to walk, bend its knees, turn its head, and contort its fingers to mime hand signals," reports Popular Mechanics. The 60-foot robot is the largest in the world. From the report: Inspired by the fictional Japanese robot of the same name -- which has appeared in over 50 TV series and movies since 1979, as well as many manga comics and video games -- this Gundam features a staggering 24 degrees of freedom. People in Japan have caught and shared a few glimpses of the engineering marvel. Considering the Gundam weighs about 25 tons, it's pretty insane to watch it raise both arms in the air and pick itself back up after kneeling.

Those efficiencies are thanks to precise engineering and design work, as outlined in a series of YouTube videos from Gundam Factory Yokohama. In one installment, the engineers give a tour of where they designed, built, and assembled the Gundam. The videos are a great way to really contextualize the size of this monster; from the metal fingertip to where the wrist will connect, for example, the hand is about 6.5 feet wide.

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Giant Gundam Robot In Japan Makes Its First Moves

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  • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @05:09AM (#60542542)

    it's pretty insane to watch it raise both arms in the air and pick itself back up after kneeling.

    Hey Voltron, quit stealing Colin Kaepernick's moves!

  • by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @05:36AM (#60542554)
    Now they just need to find a purpose for a giant toy that moves incredibly slowly.
  • by ClueHammer ( 6261830 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @06:02AM (#60542606)
    Its not walking its posing on some sort of support frame. and its not wreaking havoc, moving so slow they had to speed up the footage!
    • Its not walking its posing on some sort of support frame. and its not wreaking havoc, moving so slow they had to speed up the footage!

      Yeah at 4x, is was still super slow... But the Japanese and their fascination with Gundam is something to see.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        Rose Twitter: "All these rich people wasting money on things like rockets and electric cars make me sick. Money should be being spent on things that help people suffering today!"

        Japan: "Hey everyone, we just built a skyscraper-sized working Gundam!"

    • by memnock ( 466995 )

      Right. It's more like the tallest, heaviest marionette ever. If it was doing all of that under its own power, that would be impressive.

    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      I agree. I wasn't as impressed after watching the video as I was at just the description in the summary.
      It is still a rather impressive feat of engineering just not as extraordinary as I originally thought.

    • This object has previously been reported as 'walking', though it was similarly being supported and the movement were less.
      So false, not first movement.
      So false, not walking
      So false, not a robot
      True, in Yokohama

      1 out of 4 is intolerable truth rate.

    • Exactly. The article made it sound like they'd built a robot that actually walks. That thing is just a puppet on a very big stick. It's pretty but an engineering marvel it is not.

    • Its not walking its posing on some sort of support frame.

      It didn't say the robot was walking. It said "pick up it's legs to walk". Like if I put my coat on to go outside, but got distracted and never went outside.

      • Oh wait ... I just noticed the article's headline made the claim.

        Wow, the /. summary removed the clickbait headline and only included the technically correct part.

  • Does it use a beam weapon, beam saber, twin vulcans, hand cannon, cleaver or a giant mace? Let's hope they don't give it a twin buster rifle.

  • by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @06:17AM (#60542644)

    Inspired by the fictional Japanese robot of the same name -- which has appeared in over 50 TV series and movies
    A Gundam is a type of mecha, this is the RX-78-2 that appeared in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Though the "protagonist" gundam follows a common design theme they're different mechs altogether.

  • I mean, picking up your own legs to walk, sounds tricky
  • by scdeimos ( 632778 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @06:35AM (#60542664)

    A giant Gundam in Japan's Port of Yokohama is now able to "pick up its legs to walk, bend its knees, turn its head, and contort its fingers to mime hand signals," reports Popular Mechanics.

    Considering the Gundam weighs about 25 tons, it's pretty insane to watch it raise both arms in the air and pick itself back up after kneeling.

    It's not doing any such thing when both its feet are off the ground. In case you didn't notice its attached to a crane on that massive gantry behind it.

  • You're wondering who I am. Machine or mannequin. With parts made in Japan. I am the modern man.
  • by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @06:55AM (#60542682)

    All intelligent people* looking at those videos will be asking themselves an obvious question:

    WILL IT WALK UNSUPPORTED OR NOT ?

    * i.e. Not Popular Mechanics writers or Slashdot Editors.

    • I have heard the end goal is to have it walk from one spot to another back and forth. I haven't heard if the end goal includes walking unsupported or if its actually just a mobile gantry with the mecha miming the whole thing. My assumption is the latter given how its moves during these tests. No actual walking robot, Asimo, any of Boston Dynamic's creations move like that. Instead its movements are more akin to a full rigged and animated video game character. And just how video game characters don't actuall

      • Bipedal robots are possible and have been successfully pulled off but never at this scale and its actually a really terrible way to move, unless your actual goal is to climb trees.

        No land animal can move farther in a week than a fit human. Walking and jogging are very efficient. Energy is stored in the tendons. Your average robot can't do that. It would need supercapacitors (for electrically actuated robots) or accumulators (for hydraulics) to store energy, and to be designed to make use of the energy that way. It should be physically possible, though.

    • by Admiral Krunch ( 6177530 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:38AM (#60542884)

      All intelligent people* looking at those videos will be asking themselves an obvious question:

      WILL IT WALK UNSUPPORTED OR NOT ?

      * i.e. Not Popular Mechanics writers or Slashdot Editors.

      A half competent person would just notice it isn't even supporting its own weight.

      Even at 4x speed it floats in the air in much the same way that bricks don't.

    • Intelligent people watching the video are saying oh neat, and not left wondering much.

      Because intelligent people don't need to be told there are not 25 ton bipedal robots walking around under their own power in 2020.

    • by qzzpjs ( 1224510 )

      WILL IT WALK UNSUPPORTED OR NOT ?

      Absolutely not. Walking is all about center of balance. In order for it to lift its right foot, it has to first shift the entire upper body probably 15 or more feet to the left to make sure it is balanced on the left foot first. Then it can lift the right. Then it has to shift that weight forward so it can fall onto the right foot. Next, it will have to shift all the weight 30 feet to the right so that it can lift the left leg. And so on. Poor pilot in the head is going

  • What the hell .. while it's somewhat impressive and cool .. it doesn't walk. If it did walk, THAT would be super impressive. Still, I hope it inspires someone to make a robot that big that does walk.

    • What the hell .. while it's somewhat impressive and cool .. it doesn't walk. If it did walk, THAT would be super impressive. Still, I hope it inspires someone to make a robot that big that does walk.

      Yeah, I don't quite understand it either unless they plan to incrementally upgrade it.
      I would think step 1 should have been to create a fully working 10 foot model to work out the kinks first.
      A 10 foot model would be much easier to handle but is still large enough that everything should still work the same way
      and parts are large enough to easily work on.

      • I think step 1 was the Life-Sized Unicorn Gundam Statue. It's a fixed statue that has only has a few moving parts on the knees, chest and head.

        Step 2 is the Gundam Factory Yokohama model that we're talking about here.

        Step 3 is going to be the first generation of a fully motorized, stand-alone giant robot.

        Step 4 is going to be a much more agile version of step 3.

        Step 5 is going to be a fully armoured model of step 4 equipped with weapons.

        Step 6: profits!

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    And this one was also made in Japan!

  • this Gundam features a staggering 24 degrees of freedom.

    For the non-roboticists, that means joints. Degrees of Freedom is a really stupid non-descriptive turn of phrase. Also standard in robotics.

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Well, it's a bit more than just joints, or it should be. A ball and socket joint gives you an extra degree of freedom over a hinge joint, and when the joint has limited degrees of rotation (i.e. always) it shouldn't count as a full degree of freedom. But I'm sure that those limits aren't considered in press releases.

  • It's a giant puppet connected to the building behind it. This is about as impressive as a Punch and Judy show.

    • FIY, a motorized arm bolted to the floor that can move a car door in a factory is also a robot.

      Signed,
      Captain Pedantic

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @09:31AM (#60543046)

    ... the Agriculture Ministry has been busy.

  • This is not a robot - just a huge mechanical humanoid marionette. It is as much robot as a back-hoe.

    • Hi there, I see you need the same information as scott_evil above.

      FIY, a motorized arm bolted to the floor that can move a car door in a factory is also a robot.

      Signed,
      Captain Pedantic

      • So say a kitchen blender is a robot too?

        • Wikipedia: "A robot is a machine - especially one programmable by a computer - capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. Robots can be guided by an external control device or the control may be embedded within."

          • OK the then. The Kitchen Blender without a timer cannot be considered a robot, I give you that. The one with timer...maybe? But a dish or cloth washers definitely are. In fact these interact with environment more than this mannequin.

            But seriously, is any dummy a "robot'? If so there is plenty of them in Home Depot for Hallowing...All these and the one here are really a variant of automaton or animatronics, not robots:
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • A fully-tethered and supported robot like this isn't much good for real world activities, but it'd be great for putting on shows at a theme park. Having a giant gundam kneel down and waive to a crowd of kids would be an awesome experience. Would like to see it sped up a bit, at regular speed it's still awfully slow right now (note that the linked videos are at 4x and 2x).
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday September 25, 2020 @10:11AM (#60543186)
    on the new Perfect Grade kits. Where the hell am I gonna get a set of clippers that big?
    • Never mind the clippers, how much time is it going to take to paint all those parts and how much is it going to cost for all that paint!

  • Could they do better than a giant Gundam puppet? What's the largest bipedal robot ever built? What's the largest feasible one? Is it technically possible to build something like this? What are the limits of modern mechanical engineering? Anybody know an upper limit? Cheers, Andrew

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