Jul 29, 2009

The 7th Wandahoo Robot Carnival in Telecom Center, Tokyo (July 19, 2009)

Robot competition, "The 7th Wandahoo Robot Carnival" sponsored by Mr. Ishikawa was carried out at Telecom Center the 21st Floor, Tokyo on July 19th, 2009.

Thirty-eight robots joined the competition. Four type games, Dash 2000 (2 m foot race), Bottle Traction (pushing or pulling a basket with 500 or 1000 ml bottles for 2 m within 1 min; points are multiplication of number of bottles and distance carried), Dice Shot (dice soccer; points are depended on the spots of dice shot for 150 sec) and Cubs (team game of 3 robots each; carrying cubs to own territory for 2 min) were carried out.


Each robot got points from each game. In the case of team game, winner team robots got points. Four robots gotten much points had a final tournament of robot fight. The rest 34 robots had ramble fights.

The competition started at 13:00. The winner was Sarga (Igaa). The 2nd place was Daigakku (Akitsuka), the 3rd place was Manboo (Tokyo University of Science, Robot Creator), and the 4th place was Zerfer (ShirakazeM). The winner of ramble fights was Alumiy (Omata). And Prot-Zaurer (Kenta) got the right to join the 1st JSRC (Japan Standard Class Robot Community) Championship in Nagoya on October, 2009.

Videos are as follows:

Dash 2000 (2 m foot race) Sarga vs Doka Harumi


Dash 2000 (2 m foot race) Marin vs Mechakogy


Dash 2000 (2 m foot race) Kohana vs Eorz


Bottle Traction (carrying a basket with bottles) Kinopy vs Kabura


Dice Shot (dice soccer) Koyuki vs Kohana


Cubs (Getting cubs, team game) Sarga team vs Daigakku team


Ramble Fight Final Match


Robot Fight Final Match; Sarga vs Daigakku

Jul 28, 2009

The 3rd ROBO-ONE SOCCER in Panasonic Center, Tokyo ( July 18-19, 2009)

The 3rd RBO-ONE SOCCER was carried out at Panasonic Center in Tokyo on July 18th and 19th, 2009. The 1st Soccer Game of ROBO-ONE was carried out as ROBO-ONE Special CUP on June 30th and July 1st in 2007. Then every 1 year holds games.

There is a big difference between ROBO-ONE SOCCER and KONDO CUP soccer. The soccer field of ROBO-ONE SOCCER is made from a lot of joint carpet (30 cm x 30 cm ). Therefore, it is necessary to make motions different from those on the smooth field of KONDO CUP. Another big difference was the number of playing robots. Four robots played in the ROBO-ONE SOCCER different from 3 robots in the KONDOU CUP. Therefore, one team had to consist of 4 robots at least, most of teams consisted of 5 robots including a substitute robot.

Seven teams, as Trinity, Espresso-Pacchigi, Hamamatsu Technical High School, RFC Bamboo☆Bridge, Shisenkai, Nagaranger Kantou Branch and RFC Aichi attended the game. Espresso-Pacchigi team was an international team, consisted of English, Japanese and Korean.

The 1st preliminary league was carried out on July 18th and the 2nd preliminary league was on July 19th. Each top two teams of preliminary leagues had a final tournament on July 19th. The winner was Trinity, the 2nd place was Espresso-Pacchigi and the 3rd place was Shisenkai.

The 1st preliminary league had 21 games. Several games of the 1st preliminary league videos are as follows:

The 3rd game, RFC Aichi vs TRINITY


The 10th game, NAGARENGER KANTOU BRANCH vs TRINITY


The 13th game, KANTOU BRANCH vs RFC Bamboo Bridge


The 15th game, RFC Aichi vs Espresso Pacchigi


The 16th game, Kantou Branch vs Hamamatsu Technical High School


The 18th game, Kantou Branch vs Shisenkai

Jul 8, 2009

JO-ZERO, a new robot kit, will be put on the market ( July 8, 2009 )

Mr. Nakamura, president of Himeji Soft Works, announced JO-ZERO, a new robot kit, will be put on the market on July 15th, 2009. The presentation was carried out at RT, a robot shop in Akihabara, Tokyo on July 5th , 2009.

Himeji Soft Works is well-known as a robot control board developer, HSWB series and Motion Processor series, and the president Mr. Nakamura is also famous for a robot builder making unique and excellent robots as a transforming robot, HSWR07 and a female type robot, LILIA .

JO-ZERO has been developed for a biped robot kit with 3 purposes, `Cool`, `Speed` and `Human-like`. As for `Cool`, Mr Mitsuru Kamiya, one of the most famous robot comic writers well-known as `Purares-Sanshiro` and `Act ON`, designed the head part of JO-ZERO. He advised not only on the head part but also robot body design, color and naming. These advises made JO-ZERO with cool form and cool color.

As for the 2nd purpose, `Speed`, JO-ZERO is using RS304MD from Futaba Corporation as the actuator which is also used in G-ROBOT GR001 and G-Dog from H.I.P. Japan. The torque of RS403MD is 5kg・cm. It is necessary for rapid moving to make the body weight light. The weight of JO-ZERO is 800 g without battery, and about 860 g with battery which is about half those of KHR-2HV/3HV.  

As for the 3rd purpose, `Human-like`, JO-ZERO has 20 axes which make the robot move more human-like than KHR-2HV or KHR-3HV with 17 axes. G-ROBOT GR001 also has 20 axes. However there is a big difference between JO-ZERO and GR001 in the position of axis. JO-ZERO does not have neck and leg roll axes but has hand roll axes and a body pitch axis. These characteristic axis positions make the JO-ZERO movement as `Human-like`.

The battery is using PR-4S780P, which is also used in G-ROBOT GR001 and G-Dog, and is well-known as a safe lithium polymer battery. Price is excluded the battery.

The control board is HSWB-03F, a new one developed for JO-ZERO. The software for HSWB-03F is JOZ Controller which is also newly developed. JOZ has a motion generating function which makes a walking motion of JO-ZERO automatically on PC. As you know, it is the most difficult to make walking motions of biped robot. JOZ Controller makes it easy.

The shipment is scheduled on July 15th, 2009 from Himeji Soft Works or other robot shops. STR-ZERO, the base model, will also put on the market at the same time. STR-ZERO has 17 axes without hand roll axes, a body pitch axis and head part. The weight is about 680g without battery.

As the weight of JO-ZERO is much lighter than those of KHR-2HV/3HV, JO-ZERO seems to be not suitable for robot fight except for under 1 kg class (UK1). Of course, JO-ZERO is enough power in the UK1. It seems to be suitable for robot builder who would like to make robot express behavior of human.



Specifications are as follows:
Length: 300(H) ×170(W) ×100(D)mm
Weight: 800g (without battery)
Axis: 20 (arm 8, body2, foot 10)
Servo: RS304MD (torque 5kg・cm)
CPU: HSWB-03F with 3 analog terminal for gyro, 3 analog and 3 digital terminals
Software: JOZ Controller
Battery: PR-4S780P, a lithium polymer battery from Futaba Corporation (excluding the kit)

The detail of JO-ZERO was described in Himeji Soft Works Site and Robot Watch.