ROPID the adorable humanoid can jump 3-inches into the air, sweep you off your feet

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a humanoid robot this size do anything very new or interesting — mostly they seem busy with their slow-mo dance moves — but the new ROPID bot by Tomotaka Takahashi, the man behind Panasonic’s Evolta bots, not only has a few new tricks up its plastic sleeves, but has personality to spare. The bot can rotate its upper torso, which seems to help immensely in keeping it balanced while jumping, running and skipping around. It’s still the tried-and-true “bent knees” method of balance, but ROPID is “rapid” enough to make it look almost lifelike. The movements are expressive enough, but with some slightly articulated hands and a moving mouth, ROPID ups the adorable-ness factor over some of its nuts and bolts counterparts. ROPID can also respond to a few voice commands and speaks as well. Takahashi designed and built the bot himself, which makes us wonder what we’ve been doing with our lives that’s so-very-important for the past couple of decades. Video of ROPID in action is after the break.

[Via Plastic Pals]

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ROPID the adorable humanoid can jump 3-inches into the air, sweep you off your feet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This post is tagged: humanoid, jumping, robot, ropid, Running, takahashi, tomotaka takahashi, TomotakaTakahashi