Meet Kuratas, the world's first giant boarding robot. Yes, that is 4 metres tall and it weighs 4,500kg and as well as that you can jump inside and take it for a spin. The driver's interface is a device using Kinect, but if you prefer to control your robots from a safe distance you can use a touch screen phone as a remote. Fed up of waiting for an anime-style mecha robot to be invented, artist Kogoro Kurata decided to develop one himself inspired by his childhood love of anime. He brought on Wataru Yoshizaki, a roboticist to help develop the software and robot's movement. Kuratas moves around using four wheels, can move at 10kph and can be mounted with weapons. It's probably about now that we should mention that Kogoro Kurata calls Kuratas 'an art piece', offering a customised suit for the modest price of 1.3 million dollars. The tongue-in-cheek advertisements for Kuratas are an entertaining watch, but will certainly have you asking if this is just an elaborate hoax. Either way, it's a pretty mean looking piece of machinery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TztFUjrI2CE
KJ Lewis is 35 years old, was able to rear three small children into three slightly bigger children and has a relatively untested and unfounded passion for writing.
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