Robi, plus other robotic friends. Beep boop

[importaku]

I love me some robotics, never knew about this till i stumbled upon the fact that it's actually been released in the uk. it's a magazine series where you build your own robot. It's really expensive at ?12 per issue and there are like 70 issues to complete him so not eactly something taken on lightly as it's over ?800 when complete but it's a wonderful little robot. While not quite on the same technology level as an Aibo ERS-7 he's pretty high up there the balance and walking are especially impressive. Plus he looks adorable.



They have already started on another series to make a bike for him


I fear for my wallet as i really want him, now the decision of attempting to go hardcore and build him in Japanese or wait for the english version to come back in stock.

[Asura]

That's amazing.

Are they doing an English version? If they did this in the UK, I'd definitely subscribe.

[importaku]

Indeed they are it's recently been released in the UK but they are out of stock if you want to subscribe, i'm waiting to see if it comes back in if it doesn't ill take the Japanese route.

This is the uk site

http://www.hellorobi.co.uk/

[Asura]

This is going to make me sound like a total weeb, but his English voice seems really charmless compared to the Japanese one.

[importaku]

You are not alone, I prefer his Japanese voice.

[VR46]

Least it's being done by a well known publisher, reading out of stock I would just fear about not being able to get all the issues/parts somewhere down the line with something like this. Hopefully the sales are much higher than they expected.
Much better than some of the weekly magazine build yourself tat on the market.

[importaku]

Because it's been released in so many countries along with it also been in Japan if they ever stopped or you couldn't get an issue over here you could just get that issue from another country so there is a bit of a safety net but i totally know what you mean. Yeah those build your own series usually get me rolling my eyes this is the first one that i have looked at and thought "damn i want that" I'm guessing that they are just importing the parts kits from Japan then printing up the box and magazine to tailor it to whatever country it's been released in hence the stock shortages.

Oh and he sings too


People in Japan are doing alsorts of amazing customisation jobs with him. Because all the shells are kit form you can paint him really easily.

[Lebowski]

these things worry me as you could get ?500 in and it just stops, its happened before. build quality would worry me too, i remember reading about some ?400 rc car magazine that had a massive design flaw that caused a part to break very easily.

this dose look very cool though and a lot better than most of the build collect-o-tat stuff

[beecee]

this look really good, my only reservation about it, as it takes an age to build him, there has bound to be faulty components, and you will never really know until its at an almost complete stage, will the replace any parts?

[importaku]

No idea about the uk one but on the Japanese site you can buy every part as a spare, so if anything ever burns out you can repair him. It's already on the 3rd revision in Japan so they seem to be supporting him rather well over there, alsorts of fanclubs and other things involving him on the official site.

[wakka]

I like the look of the robot, but I don't trust these DeAgostini people. Why can't I just buy the whole thing in one go? Just seems like a way of hiking the price up unnecessarily. And as others mention, what if they fold or something after you've spent ?600?

[EvilBoris]

That's really cool.

If was really bored and they were in stock I'd be tempted.

AS for the Japanese voice, presumably that is just a software thing or a component thing, so as you say you could just buy that specific part from japan.

[kryss]

I would just get the whole lot in spares from the J-site.

[teddymeow]

Strangely, I was watching an episode of Japanology Plus on YouTube the other day about robots and the main guest was the creator of Robi.

[importaku]

Haven't seen that episode before, it was fun to watch. The realistic human looking ones are creepy as hell but the non human ones were great, love how Japanese society just accepts them and gets on with it.