Robot Army Headed for Chicago!

There's an army of humanoid robots marching on Chicago, and the latest field surveillance reports forecast them arriving in the great city's suburbs sometime on the morning of Thursday, October 18th fully prepared for the tough battle ahead.

Their objective is very clear and surprisingly simple. They want to bring the joy and excitement of humanoid robotics to a much larger audience, including beginners, students, researchers, and hobbyists on a limited budget. To achieve that, they will have to deliver the same performance as the expensive and complex humanoid kits already on the market, but at a drastically reduced retail price and without cutting corners or lowering quality.

Thankfully, the leaders behind this humanoid robot army know what they are doing and have decades of success providing hobby and enthusiast level airplane models and kits to customers all over the world. 

The robots name? RoboPhilo, which comes from Programmable Humanoid In Lifelike Operation. 

The price? Under US$500 fully assembled and ready to walk, and even less for the kit version. That's half to one third the price of existing humanoid robot kits.

And the performance specifications? Really, really sweet. Check out this two page summary that just appeared online in the World Models 2008 catalog:

RoboPhilo will be unveiled at the iHobby Expo 2007 exhibition at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL from October 18th through the 21st. if you happen to live in the MidWest, or can find some way to attend the exhibition, this is a great opportunity to check out this exciting new robot up close and personal.

And, we're happy to say that RoboPhilo won't be the only robot in attendance. This year there are a whole raft of robot related exhibitors including RoboGames, Trossen Robotics, Robotics Trends, Robotis, Robot Magazine, and many others. There are dealer oriented robot seminars on the schedule, and there's even a special  'Robot Battle Zone' where members of ChiBots will be staging robot competitions. We've heard rumors that some of our favorite RoboGames champion robots, like Matt Bauer's Rook's Pawn and Royce's Bioloids, will be going head to head for the gold.

Just so that those who aren't lucky enough to make it to Chicago next week don't feel left out, we put together a multiple page, hands-on RoboPhilo review for the Winter 2007 Robot Magazine issue, scheduled to be on the stands by October 31st (yes, Halloween!). And, of course, we'll be posting RoboPhilo photos, videos, insights, tips, and techniques right here on Robots Dreams.