June 19th, 2006
A Led Zeppelin robotic fan
In a short article, RobotsDreams.com reports about MechaBonham, a Japanese musical robot based on the classic Kondo KHR-1 humanoid robot design. But even if the creators of this robot are fans of Led Zeppelin in general and of John Bonham, its drummer who died in 1980, in particular, MechaBonham, who can play guitar or piano, I doubt you will like to hear it everyday.
Here is the introduction of this short post about this musical robot.
MechaBonham made the trek to Tokyo last weekend for the KHR-1 Second Anniversary celebration, as a part of the Robo-Fighters group from the Osaka area. Many of the robots in the Robo-Fighters group are top rank ROBO-ONE competitors that have a well earned reputation for power and competitiveness in the ring.
In contrast, MechaBonham is a very different, and at the same time very delightful, type of robot. When it comes time to fight, he prefers a tough game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" or at least the Japanese version of the game. But, what he might lack in terms of pure strength or killer instinct is more than made up for by his musical abilities.
Musical abilities? You’ll be judge. At least, MechaBonham looks like a musician from the 70s.
Below is a picture of MechaBonham playing guitar (Credit: SK-PANG). You can even hear the robot playing "When the saints go marchin in" — at your own risk — with its guitar by looking at this short video (QuickTime format, 18 seconds, 3.35 MB).
But MechaBonham is a versatile musician and can also practice paiano as you can see below (Credit: SK-PANG). And again, you can hear this robot by watching this other video (QuickTime format, 36 seconds, 9.32 MB).
And don’t miss the video featured in the original article! After hearing MechaBonham, I’m sure you’ll need to listen to some original Led Zeppelin songs…
Sources: Robots-Dreams.com, June 15, 2006; and ‘MechaBonham’ web site
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