HOW-TO: Transform your mini PC into a police robot

Don't get too excited, as this one isn't a play-by-play instructional. Rather it's a tip o' the hat to our ever-more fantastically robotic pals in the land of the rising sun. A bunch of young Japanese geeks (a herd? a swarm? a gaggle? Do we have an official collective noun for this?) have put together this most excellent "police robot" out of a Kuro box, 32 feet from the crab-bot, a webcam, two torch lights and some rechargeable batteries. The result is the above rather formidable autonomous, programmable bot. Good job, kids — we sure as hell wouldn't want to meet this thing in a dark alley.

[Bill @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

Where are the tentacles. I could've sworn I saw that thing in Legend of the Overfiend.

[Tutor @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

Of course any criminal suspects being chased by this thing only have to hold it off until its OS chokes and gets a blue-screen.

Now give me a killer copbot based on a Mac mini and watch 'em sweat.

[Infinite @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

No no, they didn't get the legs from a "Crab Bot", they got them from a "Centipede Bot", also part of the "Mechamo" series of bots.

You can see the legs definetly come from a "Centipede Bot" here:

http://www.e-clec-tech.com/mechamo.html

[Friar @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

"A bunch of young Japanese geeks (a herd? a swarm? a gaggle? Do we have an official collective noun for this?)"

A Zergrush? :D

[Robert Kozak @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

"A bunch of young Japanese geeks (a herd? a swarm? a gaggle? Do we have an official collective noun for this?)"

I respectfully submit that a collection of geeks be called a "Hackle of Geeks".

Actually a "Collection of Geeks" works well too :-D

-- Robert

[Willywill @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

I think we should use the terms "bit, byte, megabyte" etc. as the collective noun for computer geeks. One of them would be a
bit of a geek, 2 - 8 would be a byte of geeks, 8- 1024 of them would be a kilobyte and so on....

[Matthew @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

A cruster of geeks - oh . . . calm down.

[aehudson @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

I always thought it was a grip of geeks...

[strider_mt2k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

Any group of 4 or more geeks is a "party", as in "My party was killed by a +3 Orc of maiming."
or
"My party had no attendees"

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

"Of course any criminal suspects being chased by this thing only have to hold it off until its OS chokes and gets a blue-screen."

Err ... KuroBox is a PPC based barebones Linux platform ... since when did a headless Linux box blue-screen?

[Peter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

I like how the Japanese continously find new (sometimes disturbing) uses for average objects.

[CaptSnuffy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:22AM]

Would have never guessed they were japanese...