Ever since the first issue in December 1998, the magazine has offered a wealth of information on building your own robot, tournaments and more.
"If you count the preliminaries too, there must be around 150 to 200 robot competitions every year," says the editor of Robocon Magazine. Three of the many contests are Robo-One (over 200 teams have competed so far), the All Japan Robot-Sumo Tournament (where the winning robot pushes the other out of the ring), and the RoboCup for cyber soccer players. Robot tournaments keep bringing out the crowds Robocon MagazineĬombat robot sports are a big hit in Japan. Hopefully a few of them will go on to become top engineers." Goto looks to the future: "We plan to hold classes on a regular basis to teach kids the basics and help more young people experience the fun of building their own robot. It became the store's bestseller after the price dropped from around 400,000 yen, and Tsukumo has sold more than 3,000 so far. The KHR-1 kit, made by Kondo Kagaku, packs plenty of performance and sells for a "cheap" 120,000 yen. Goto Yamato, who promotes the store's retail business, says the dueling Robo-One robots really energized the new hobby.Īfter Robo-One made waves, the store began selling two legged walking robot kits, and this helped amateurs get into the action. Today, it is also a great place for amateur robot makers to swap information. The build-it-yourself fad basically began in schools, so the store concentrated on educational robot kits and parts. The "Kingdom" opened in August 2000, on the third floor of Tsukumo Denki's main outlet in Akihabara, Tokyo's electric city. Japan's first store specializing in build-your-own robots was Tsukumo Robot Kingdom. You'll be good at making robots if you love them," Hagiwara grins.Ī haven for robot fans in Tokyo's electric city Goto Yamato, Tsukumo Robot Kingdom's promoter of do-it-yourself kits "After I get home from work, the times I enjoy most are when I'm fine-tuning Shiranui. Shiranui's sleek look attracted plenty of attention, and since then many competitors have brought both performance and style to the combat arena. I waited for the right moment, then entered it in the fourth Robo-One." And I wanted Shiranui to look strong, so I put quite a bit of effort into the appearance.
I kept applying what I learned to Shiranui's own movements, through trial and error. "I studied how the human body moves by observing how my own legs walk and how my torso swivels from the waist.
"My first robot? Well, after I saw the two-legged fighting robots in Robo-One, I thought I could probably make one like them." Robo-One is Japan's famous robotic gladiator tournament. So I went to a technical vocational school and then began working for a company making motors.
"I had so much fun with the models I wanted to learn how to make a real one some day. He began making plastic models of the popular animé mechanical fighter Gundam when he was in elementary school. Shiranui is the robot, and its creator is Hagiwara Yoshiaki. Kawara wari is a "tile splitter" martial arts move, Shiranui's special combat technique. It seems to give up, but no, all of a sudden its right arm rises over its head and then comes crashing down, like a karate expert. The robot is nimble on its "feet," darting ahead, slipping sideways, twisting about, making smooth mechanical sounds. A passion for robot wrestling Hagiwara Yoshiaki, creator of the fighting robot, Shiranui