Awesome Robots

While its proportions are a little questionable, fans of the classic film The Iron Giant, rum, and fruit juice will still want to add this sweet ceramic tiki cup to their collection. It holds 28oz. of your favorite drink, and has a cool metallic sheen and bright eyeballs.

Kids and kids at heart can build their very own programmable robots with this fun kit. It comes with 978 pieces, which can create a self-balancing mech, an plane, or a dinosaur, each with moving parts, and the ability to control it using an Android or iOS device.

The robots of Boston Dynamics continue to get more and more impressive – and remind us that the robot uprising is an ever more realistic possibility, as their ATLAS humanoid goes for an untethered jog in the park, then shows off his acrobatic skills.

Inventor and builder Colin Furze teamed up with eBay for a crazy challenge – to construct a working replica of Tony Stark’s Hulkbuster armor using only components purchased from the auction site. Not only did Colin succeed, he excelled. Build videos here and here.

Botboxer is a boxing training system that features a punching bag that can automatically dodge your punches. Its sensors also allow it to recognize your moves. It comes with a 19″ touchscreen display that lets you control the punching bag and set drills.

Berthil van Beek shows off one of the cooler LEGO Great Ball Contraption modules we’ve seen. This one uses a complex series of gears and chains to count how many balls pass through it. We wonder if he timed the balls just right, if it could actually work as a clock.

The roboticists at Garner Holt Productions show off their proudest achievement to date. “Alfred Jingle Machina” is an animatronic head that can move more smoothly than any before it, replicating human expressions better than ever. Maybe Westworld isn’t that far off after all.

(PG-13: Language) Simone Giertz’s latest ridiculous design is for a contraption that you set on your shoulders to deliver items to your face as they rotate in orbit around your head. Yes, it’s as stupidly hilarious as it sounds.

While LEGO Technic seems to get most of the love around here when it comes to building machines, K’NEX deserves a little love too. Check out this single-purpose robot that Thibault Art built which is capable of tossing and perfectly landing a water bottle every time.

Supposedly, Furrion’s 15 foot-tall mechanical exoskeleton will eventually be used in mech racing competitions. At this point, its still slow and clunky, but we’d still love to have one to stomp about in because it just looks cool.

Festo, makers of the SmartBird, Octopus Gripper, and BionicANT robot add to their nature-inspired menagerie with a robot whose abilities are based on those of the flic-flac spider, which can not only walk like a regular arachnid, but can cartwheel along the ground.

“They show us I, Robot just to make sure we don’t get any ideas.” Sophia the robot goes on a date with entertainer Will Smith, and it quickly becomes evident that there’s no love connection. Will might want to unplug his devices before Skynet comes after him.

New Gundam Breaker is an action game for Windows and PS4 where you play with living versions of Gunpla, or Gundam model kits. Collect parts as you battle and use them to build your own mech. You’ll also be able to swap parts while in battle. Drops 6/22/18.

(PG-13: Language) Despite their heritage, commercial success and inherent coolness, giant robots are not as popular today as they once wer. Gigguk charts the history of the mecha genre, its influence on anime and why it’s not as popular as it used to be.

(Spoilers) Science fiction often relies on the idea that robotic uprisings come from androids gaining human-like emotions. Trekspertise provides their thoughts on why Westworld’s approach is more compelling and believable in this excellent video essay.

King Art Games’ mechs-meets-1920s real-time strategy game is on Kickstarter. Iron Harvest promises gameplay that’s more tactics than twitch, engaging single player campaigns, and of course badass mechs and weapon systems. It’s coming to Windows, PS4 and Xbox One.

Master Replicas’ upcoming Full Scale HAL 9000 replica responds to lines from 2001: A Space Odyssey with the appropriate lines. But it’s also an Amazon Echo device, which means you can use it to play music, ask questions, control smart home devices and more.

If you thought that kid solving a Rubik’s Cube in under 5 seconds was impressive, wait til you get a load of Ben Katz’s speedy robot, which can size up the plastic cube puzzle, and solve it in less than 1/12th of the time – 0.38 seconds to be precise.

If you thought that Sophia the robot was creepy before, check this out, as the humanoid AI sings Bjork’s All Is Full of Love, which by no coincidence featured a singing robot in its video. Skip to 3:48 for the performance, which we suspect was aided by Vocaloid.

Inspired by a design posted by Brainergizer, YouTuber 上橋智恵 shows off an adorable little robot which can easily walk up walls and on ceilings – as long as they’re made out of metal. Its construction relies on neodymium magnets in its feet to work its magic.

1000Toys’ highly accurate The Iron Giant figure looks like a statue, but it’s actually a highly poseable collectible. It’s about 6.3″ tall, is made of many die-cast metal parts and comes with two heads, four pairs of hands, two sets of teeth and the “S” chest emblem.

Teenage Engineering – the folks behind the awesome Pocket Operator synths are collaborating with Chinese tech giant Baidu to create a robotic speaker reminiscent of Pixar’s Luxo, Jr. The R moves and grooves to music, while displaying patterns on its LED head.

Boston Dynamics‘ growing robot army is getting ever more ready for its uprising. Watch as one of its SpotMini quadruped ‘bots uses its arm appendage to not only open a door, but to let his buddy out. They’re coming for us… it’s only a matter of time.