Robonova VS JR RB1000.

[tempusmaster]

You're right in that it is more than that - much, much more. Unfortunately most of the press seems to focus on the battle aspect and ignores the other 90%.

I know that phaenomenon. It's like the robo-competitions here, or the Robocup. Very interesting challenges but the only thing every TV channel broadcasts are the aibos playing. ***They are soooo cute***

Well, if it ends up expanding visibility and gets more people interested, then I suppose it's a good thing.

Personally, I find the Demonstration phase of the competitions much more interesting and exciting.

Yeah it was the dance performance of the RN which got me on the hook.

That did it for a lot of people. Funny thing is that the KHR-1 was doing almost exactly the same routine before the RN appeared. Hitec expanded on it, increased the number of robots performing simultaneously, and presented it in a much more striking and impressive fashion.

That used to be true, but at ROBO-ONE 9 last month there were quite a few robots that had an array of sensors, did visual recognition and tracking, and other similar features. We're not there yet, but the objective is to make them autonomous, and fairly soon.

Oh it would be so nice to see the event live, mostly I only get information over the web a long time after the event and mostly in an asian language I cannot read

[/quote]
It is quite different when you're there in person. My Japanese language ability is pretty basic, but I manage to get by somehow.

For the robot-like-an-R/C-car crowd, Kyosho with products like Manoi is more likely to be successful than the RB, and provides a lot more performance for the money. In the longer term, the RB is likely to be stuck in the middle between the two potential markets.

I agree with you. The Manoi is really nice and from the appearance a real bang for the buck if the meet their wanted price just above the RN-1.

They'll hit the targeted price, at least that's what Okamoto says. Under the covers Manoi is extremely well built. I was expecting a KHR-1 clone with nice plastic, and was really surprised when we got to take it completely apart. 8O 8O 8O

But as you mentioned I also see Hitec and Kondo, perhaps another big company in this market.
The RB from Graupner is in fact just an older design I've seen somewhere in a video before. I have to look in my files, but I don't have them here at work.

There's a whole bunch of similar designs out, and more on the way. Some of them are really cool, but I have to wonder if they have the business backing to survive long term.

And the Manoi looks just like a licence-production of the chroino of the great Tomotaka Takahashi. But I really like the way it moves. But have you seen the FT, that's really cute.

Chroino, Manoi, and FT are all Takahashi creations. Takahashi is even featured on the Kyosho/Manoi website. FT is definitely cute - no question.

Personaly I like most the new entries to Robo-One. The agility of OmniZero.2 and the like. WOW!

Maeda (OmniZero.2) is really fantastic as a robot designer, and he's a great showman as well. For example, if you watch the first few seconds of his ROBO-ONE 9 demonstration you can see that he even has the robot making slight breathing movements while it's supposed to be 'sleeping'.

Of course Maeda isn't really a 'hobbyist', he's a pro. His day job is with VStone.

Given how much the ROBO-ONE robots have advanced over the past year or so, I suspect that they will have to introduce some new classifications - like a set of Professional and Amateur categories - by next Spring.

I'm pretty heavily biased towards the RN as well, and don't even have one sitting next to me!

Go ahead and buy one! What are you waiting for! Expand the comunity

Steffen

As much as I really like the RN - and I do, honestly - it will probably end up being my second biped. I'll know more this weekend.

[yag-freak]

That did it for a lot of people. Funny thing is that the KHR-1 was doing almost exactly the same routine before the RN appeared.

Yes I had the movie files of the KHR long ago. Funny thing is, that a lot of robots doing just the same demo-stunts. But for me that was good, it makes them a little more comparable.
RN won for me mainly because of the price. At that time it was 850 Euros against 1700 Euros of the KHR. And I thought that most of the programing and the manuals are in asian-language, whilst the RN had the Software in english already to download as a demo.

Still I dream of a torque-monster with a lot of DOF like the YDH-EZA featured here at this site. But they are way more expensive.

They'll hit the targeted price, at least that's what Okamoto says. Under the covers Manoi is extremely well built. I was expecting a KHR-1 clone with nice plastic, and was really surprised when we got to take it completely apart.

Good to know. And yes I saw the dissection-videos @ robots-dreams. Really beautiful designed.

For example, if you watch the first few seconds of his ROBO-ONE 9 demonstration you can see that he even has the robot making slight breathing movements while it's supposed to be 'sleeping'.

Saw it and was amazed.
Actually I tried to program a little more lifelike stuff myself last weekend after I saw the video and remembered some sequences of chroino.
For example my RN now claps his hands to "get rid of some dirt" after the stand-up-from-lying moves. Looks funny.
I think, I will post the code here, so one can see what I mean. Just have to obtain it from my laptop this evening.

[trinozon]

one striking difference is still the hitec 8498 servo with its position feedback. RB dont have catch and play, so only by clicking and typing move can be generated.

If Hitec can bring out 5995 with 32kg tourque servo also with feedback feature, then it would be quite interesting...

[tempusmaster]

Robot Watch published the first installment of a fairly extensive review of the JRProPo RB1000 kit last week with lots of photos and details. You can click on any of the photos for a closer look.

http://robot.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/column/2006/06/01/17.html