Battling, brawling bots are getting ready even as I write to compete in www.robocup.org, the third annual robocup competition. This harsh competition aims to weed out the dodgy droids from the rocking robots in a series of endurance and intelligence tests, and many a would-be Sir Clive Sinclair or Bill Gates has been left weeping on the side-lines as their mechanical baby is left off the victor's podium. There's a whole host of robots coming onto the market now, of which the best known is probably Cye at http://www.personalrobots.com/ Cye is a hobby robot controlled through a simple graphic user interface on a PC, and has appealed to a number of people (e.g. Californian geeks) who enjoy the dubious fun offered by remote control devices - many of whom have now taken to creating their own Cye software & hardware accessories. Heck, it's more fun than feeding a cat. Less messy too. Similar sites can be found at http://www.elekit.com/ which manufactures science kit bots, as well as http://www.geckosystems.com/ which does a rather natty care bot. |
