One of the highlights of this exposition was Honda’s latest robot ‘Asimo‘ (left). It has more advanced walking technology and is both smaller and lighter than ‘P3’ (Asimo : height 120cm, weight 43kg / P3 : height 160cm, weight 130kg).

It was designed to fit into the living space of a human. The robot tells us that the Honda team has continued developing their robots to make them practical for our lives. Another one is Sony ‘SDR-3X’ that could walk with two legs by itself (right). It uses the same architecture as Aibo and the height is 50cm smaller than Asimo. It also has a ability to control wide variety of movements including dancing.

Bandai ‘WonderBorg’, an insect shaped robot that can be easily programmed. It can be customized as you like in both software and hardware, and it’s because Bandai is a toy maker.

Takara ‘Aquaroid’ is the world’s first breeding robot. It keeps working semipermanently using a fluorescent light installed on the upper part of a water tank and solar batteries installed inside the body, but an archenemy of Aquaroid are the scales that forms on the body and walls of the aquarium. You have to take care of it regularly. It’s a new type of robot with the concept ‘Do nothing’, and it’s on the market now.

This exposition drew audiences totalling more than 500,000 people, and it could encourage developers. The thing is that so many people in the world have put their hopes on personal robots. This Robodex will be an annual exposition beginning next year. A society where the human and robots live together. The future is full of pleasures.

Robodex 2000
Date: November 24th – 26th, 2000
Place: Pacifico Yokohama
Address: 1-1-1 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama
Admission: General 1,000 yen
https://www.robodex.org