Adventures in Japan

RoboCup 2005

OMG! Why am I teaching English when I could be building robots?! ROBOTS!!

I'm sure I had plenty of insightful things to say earlier today, but my brain has gone a bit to mush. Or something. Here's some pictures. Flash photography was prohibited because it might interfere with the robots, so most of them didn't turn out. But:


Robots playing soccer. Kinda the point of the whole event. This picture is of a game in the four-legged league, consisting entirely of Sony Aibos. Terribly entertaining.

I very much want an Aibo.


Besides the soccer, there was a rescue league. The rescue robots were hard to see because they were usually obscured by rubble and other disaster-type paraphernalia. Not quite as much fun as robot puppies playing soccer, but important nonetheless.


A team poster from the Junior division. So cute.

I very much want some Lego Mindstorms.

Besides the competitions, there were a lot of exhibitor booths. Some of them were very cool. Some of them were very cute (lots of companion robots for the elderly). Some of them were kinda creepy. I was especially unnerved by the ones that stared right at me.


Disembodied eyes are somehow cuter, but still staring.


And then there's this one. It doesn't quite come across in the picture, but it was a pretty convincing approximation of a real person. Almost beyond the uncanny valley.


If it weren't for the fact that her mouth wasn't always synchronized with the words that came out of the speakers, and the fact that there was no articulation in the fingers, I might've thought she was a booth babe.

And here's a really for real booth babe, because I know Tyler likes them: