Man builds giant robot in backyard

Alright, this guy is officially our new hero.  He's building an 18-foot tall robot (or "mecha") in the backyard of his home in Anchorage, Alaska.   The anime-inspired behemoth is actually a giant exoskeleton that you jump into and ride, letting you take eight-foot strides or, presumably, fight invading aliens.  He hopes to have it finished by next summer and will demonstrate it by demolishing a few cars at the local racetrack.  Somebody, please send us video.

[Thanks, Dana]

[Asher @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

The ultimate commuter vehicle. So will this revamp the ratings of Robowars? Is it in a new class? How long till the military buys it?

[TheZodiac @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I can definately see military applications for this. Good call Asher.

[J. Curtis @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I hear Toys-R-Us is going to carry these. Christmas 05 is gonna be great!

[repman @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

OK, who will build the second one? You can't just have one.

[Joe @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Finally, an SUV replacement!

[chaos @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

can any one say GUNDAM

[Ray @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Hot Damn! I want more Pix.. And we HAVE to see video.. I already wrote it on my calendar to start looking for stuff in the spring!!

[Keet @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

WTF?

I LIVE in Anchorage, AK and I've never heard of this. Who could miss an 18-foot tall mecha being built in someone's backyard?

Go local news stations...

An uhh, if by some miracle I find this thing and manage a video, I'll send it to someone to host (just tell me where to send it).

[Tony @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Can it even move? Looks like it is only a towering chunk of steel..........

[Mr Wiggles @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

omg....amazing. reminds me of exosquad....

t3h win. and speaking of the military, why havent the invented their own by now?

[Alexandros @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I wonder if it will be able to walk. It's one thing to build a bipedal robot, and it's quite another to actually be able to make it move without falling over. Balance systems are one of the hardest things to design and they need a lot of computational power. It would've been easier if he'd put on stabilization wings out to the sides. Hope it works anyway!

[Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

you want more pics? they're here: http://www.neogentronyx.com/

-Mark

[Crazyjamaican @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Where can I buy one. He should sell these on ebay

[Kaolin Fire @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I know UC Berkeley's working on at least one, maybe two exos. And I'm pretty sure that's military-funded. http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/bleex.htm

Hmm. I thought there was another one, more aliens-like. Maybe I dreamed that one.

[adamcoop @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Hmm... just need someone to build a blue one, and then the boxing can begin.

[MaxSMoke @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I got $5 that says this is a Hoax. For starters, DARPA's invested millions of dollars and tons of man hours, and all they've done is a set of semi-working, human-size legs. There's no way somebody's built a working 18-foot tall Full-Body exoskeleton in their backyard. The technical requirements would be enormous. (Power, self-balancing computers, swift/powerful actuators) Also, well the picture isn't very detailed, I'm certain that robot's no more then 5 feet tall. It's a really nice hoax though. I give him props for making a nice Fiberglass statue.

And FYI to the article's writer, there were no Mech Suits in the Starship Trooper's movie. They were in the TV Show and Book though. I know alot of people were disappointed in the movie, just because they didn't show the ulra-cool Mecha's the book invented! It was like a Token movie without Hobbits. Very disappointing...

[Geo @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

First, Star Ship Troopers 2 had the mechs.

Second, that tree the suit is infront of must also be 5 feet if the suit is according to you. So I expect you to send me those 5 dollars to paypal account at [e-mail] thankyou.

[010111 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

i got to agree with #15. seems unlikely... a self-balancing and bipedal mech built as a hobby seems like a bit of a stretch. but if it is solely transferring motion of the user... i suppose. but i bet it falls over a lot.

i live in Alaska though. maybe i'll have to take a trip down to see it this summer when/if it starts destroying cars.

i would love to walk it down to burning man though. leaving a path of destruction in my wake.

[Carlos Owens @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Actually your guys who live in Alaska should know better, no one
up here knows what their neighbor is doing in their backyard, and as I'm sure
you Alaskans know as well, we have more acres up here than any other state, the
likliness of anyone knowing what anyone else is doing up here in their backyard
or otherwise, is slim to none, espescially since the story got it wrong, check
my website, nowhere in there do I once at all ever state that I live in
ANCHORAGE, in fact Im living in the Mat-Su Valley, as for your video proof you
would like to send out to anyone online, youll have it after the holiday
weekend, Watch ABC news on Sunday and Monday, not to mention the Anchorage Daily
news this next week, and the Frontiersman newspaper. This exposure happened
overnight, so naturally, even if you live in Alaska, you have no way of knowing
anything until the stories break locally.
As for DARPA, Those jackasses are far too busy giving money to the jerks with
too much education, and not enough common sense to use it to realise that they
should focus more on building things that work, and less on making them out of
platinum, gold, and whatever else they must be made of to justify spending 50
million dollars on what breaks down to essentially be nothing more than a
moderately sophisticated legbrace built from parts that any shmo out there can
obtain for a couple grand on Ebay, northern tool, or surplus catalog!!!
Give us a break DARPA! maybe when your through throwing away all the rest of
our tax dollars on ridiculous robots, you might reconsider armoring our American
humvees, as well as providing Bulletproof vests instead of those ridiculous
Flack jackets our soldiers are currently equipped with, which couldn't stop an incoming dragnfly, then maybe we wont be
losing so many American lives on foreign territory! Maybe if they held off on the waste spending, it wouldnt be so hard to do thse things? Some reseach projects CAN be put on hold, and Exoskeletons don't need to cost 50, million dollars! Hey maybe while your throwin all that money into the garbage and buying gold toilet seats, you guys could shell a little of that love my way?LOL! well... just a thought!
D.O.D. your equally to blame on ALL accounts

have a nice day ;)

and feel free to look me up sometime, I know your going to anyway! LOL!

Oh and one more thing, I will be selling them to the general public as soon as
testing concludes that they are ready enough for me to do so, but I don't know
about Christmas 2005, might wanna hold off on printing the catalogs just yet ;)

[lance @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

your robot is kick ass i wouldnt want to go against that mecha

[Christopher @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

To damn cool for words. Can't wait to see it move.

[Michael @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Poster MaxSmoke who says he will bet $5 this is a hoax, can go ahead and forward his money in donation to the negentronyx project. Major TV Late Night Talk shows are in talks with Carlos to interview him and possibly have him and the Mecha appear on National TV.

New video was posted today on the website with a brief interview with Carlos.

www.neogentronyx.com

The web designer for Neogentronyx is my son, Rusty.

[ben @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

if it is a hoax, the movie of the legmovement was very well done, as to the "5 foot tall" look at the page on the front page of their website, a six foot man is standing on the BENT knee and still doesnt have the same hieght
the lower legs are atleast another 4 feet so it is atleast ten feet with BENT knees, imagine standing straight... hm,mmm. that would be about 18 feet. :)

[Sabre @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Just stumbled across this site, though I ran into this story a few months ago. To #16, buildign an independant walking bipedal machine is difficult and demanding, but that is not what these fellas are doing. This machine is not meant to be self-balancing. It will have a very powerful balancing computer, though: the pilot. We already have devices that augment human movement, though these guys are working on a larger scale. This is not a machine that synthesizes motion, it augments the pilot's movements.

I'd say this mecha is more akin to a construction vehicle than a robot. I don't think this is quite the longshot it may appear to be.

[Grey Ash @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I've been keeping up with this for a little while. The mecha can't walk yet, but it has been tested. Originally, the legs were too short to extend far enough, so he had to extend them. Now there are balance issues. I believe this will be fixed once he gets the software installed. He'll probably need a computer-controlled gyro or something along that line. It does run though. I've already seen clips of it. The guy's around $20,000 in debt though, so it may take a while to completely finish. And as far as who's going to build a second, he plans on it if he can get more money.

[Johnathan Hok @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

The robot is real guys, and there are videos on his site: http://neogentronyx.com

He's been interviewed on numerous websites including C|NET news. There are working videos on the robot.

Also comment #22, the webdesigner is not Rusty, Rusty is just Carlos Owen's "manager". I was contacted by them becasue they were looking for someone to design their website and I own a webdesign company but unfortunately the bigger design firm "CEONEX" got the call on the project.

As some of you may know CEONEX is a very big company and they helped fund Carlos to buying some parts. Also you can see in the picture on the main site that their is an AD right there on the front of the robot advertising CEONEX.

I was also given some development videos of the final product of the walking robot created by CEONEX.

[Alan Suire @ Dec 29th 2005 1:04PM]

I for one would greatly like to see this in action. ive played around with a few inventions of my own...and from looking at the picture...this "mech" looks like it could work...the weight on the bottom would fix the trick of it being top heavy, and as long as the user could retain the balance long enough to put one foot forward, it SHOULD walk lol. in all seriousness...these "mechs" as you all them could be used in a widespread area of businesses...they could take the place of the forklifts...bomb removal, ( with some minor armor adjustments), riot enforcement, construction, and other things...i hope to see these put to use in my lifetime :)