Awesome Robots

Our favorite trash compacting robot is returning home: yup, Wall-E is coming in both Blu-ray and DVD flavors on November 18th; each will include the all-new BURN-E short film.

Developed by MIT and UMass students, the Mobile Dextrous Social (MDS) Robot is now available for sale. It can manipulate objects, as well as interact verbally and with facial expressions.

Looking like a dumbbell and weighing only 1 lb, the Recon Scout is actually a remote controlled robot with a built-in camera that SWAT teams can chuck into hostile environments.

We’ve personally dressed as a skeleton, a ghost and a pumpkin for Halloween, but this mecha costume is just plain awesome. The kid wanted to be a robot, and his dad absolutely delivered.

We’re robo-crushin’ on DJ Sures’ modded Wall-E: he takes Disney’s cheap $40 single-motor version and gives it multiple servos and a freakin’ personality, all with only 7 hours of work.

Think Cylon meets Silver Surfer: using two counter-rotating fans, the Cyber Surfer R/C Spaceboard is a pretty sweet flying toy; an accelerometer keeps him hanging ten instead of wiping out.

R2D2, eat your heart out: Thingamagoops are mini synthesizers that change frequency and pitch based on ambient lighting; in short, they’ll beep and blink up a storm.

This custom Wall-E by Morpheus looks pretty good in wood, which is unfortunate because it’s totally one of a kind and was a gift to PIXAR exec John Lasseter. Still, a geek can dream…

We haven’t figured out a way to man them up yet, but these tiny 3.4cm tall Tomy Robo-Qs will be sure to delight the ladies by navigating around obstacles and just being ridiculously cute.

Akihabara News has a gallery of Robo Japan 2008; it’s a three-day event, with robots doing everything from climbing and crawling to fighting and flying. Not all at once, of course.

Best known for Human Tetris, Guillaume Reymond is at it again with these real-life Transformers performances, staged in various cities in Switzerland using vehicles and people.

No doubt intended to augment the Moon Hater, Adrian Florea’s Hephaestus Crawler is a steampunk LEGO crawler with a cannon; it walks on eight legs like Theo Jansen’s kinetic walkers.

Not all robots and monsters are bad: for $50, Joe Alterio will draw you an original robot or monster based on three words you supply; the proceeds will then be donated to a charity.

Your voyeuristic proclivities will run wild with the remote controlled ATV-360; a pair of LCD glasses receives wireless video and audio from the tank, with treads to climb over obstacles.

Although named HAL and created by Cyberdyne, this cyborg suit is designed to help: it amplifies the strength of the elderly and disabled, and can be rented. Thank you, Sonic!

The perfect gift for your robot overlord, Tokibots are solid metal alarm clocks, replete with bolts, springs and articulating limbs. Our top pick: TANK, who likes demolition derbies.

Australian Ashley Wood has just released his Deep Powder edition MK 2 Bramble bots; these will be his last for some time, and with only 200 available, preorder these 15″ robots ASAP.

Don’t have money for a Femisapien? light-Bot is a free puzzle game with a simple premise: program a robot to move across a grid in the most efficient way possible (hint: use functions).

Forget the iPhone–if you really wanna turn heads, this heavily modded Motorola ROKR E6 transforms into a robot, yet still works! Check out the Taiwanese ad above to see it in action.

This Transformers papercraft model of Bumblebee makes our paper football look like such weak sauce: it’s made with food cartons and KFC bucket lids and actually articulates.

Keith Thompson is one of our favorite sci-fi/fantasy artists; not only is his work awesome, but he takes the time to write background stories. Spend an hour here; we sure did.

Despite what the video above may imply, Tomy’s i-SOBOT is merely cute at 6.5″ tall; the little guy can store a sequence of up to 80 actions, meaning lots of break dancing at the breakroom.

Ashley Wood’s Bertie the Pipebomb is one of the coolest collectibles we’ve seen, with 46 points of articulation, a 9″ machete, a 4″ revolver and a sling filled with zombie head war trophies.