The Fighting Android FA1, SDT's new robotic sparring partner

We here at Engadget are a passive bunch -- except, of course, for the occasional one-on-one pitting of our interns against other publications' interns in fights to the death -- so if we're going to step into the boxing ring with a shiny-shorts clad opponent ourselves, it'd better be some sort of hackable and configurable android that'll give up at the first sign of our whimpering. Enter the Fighting Android FA1 from Self Defense Technologies, a robot that can jab, hook, and cross, but still keep the violence to a minimum with adjustable difficulty levels. The FA1 can also dodge your punches with "human-like" movements and he should be hanging out on the show floor at CES -- so we'll be sure to challenge him to a round of verbal barbs from a distance.

[Via The Raw Feed]

[Guy @ Dec 30th 2005 9:40AM]

Teach this to kick and learn from past encounters, and I will be buying one of these for my training...

[Dustin Tarditi @ Dec 30th 2005 10:17AM]

All fun until someone hacks the system and cranks out the punches to about 3000 psi and it turns someone's skull into a pile of goo... or the "Evil Robot" conspiracy plays out - the "dummy" (they always hate being called that) gets fed up with always being "tuned down" so a bunch of "meatbags" can pummel its circuits... "Exterminate - exterminate"

[George Bunyan @ Dec 30th 2005 2:06PM]

Can you pit two of them against each other?

[Carlos @ Dec 30th 2005 3:07PM]

With all this creativity why robots that perform violence ? whatever will we teach robots to do next ? rape ?!?!

[Mort @ Dec 30th 2005 3:20PM]

No, I'm betting that next come tanks that shoot anything that moves, and can upgrade their weapons depending upon the size of the enemy (e.g. against a tank some kind of missile or tank armor piercing bullets, and against individuals a machine gun.)



I'm pretty sure that this is going to happen because the Army has significantly greater funds than pervs.

[jygsaw @ Dec 30th 2005 3:52PM]

I, for one, welcome our new cyborg martial artist overlords

[ax7 @ Dec 30th 2005 3:54PM]

Carlos - what CAN they come up with next? Maybe not a robot to rape, but perhaps to respond to sexual contact with moaning, back arching and leg shaking? Oh what people would pay for that...

[Kibiyama @ Dec 30th 2005 4:08PM]

Dude, to be a cyborg you have to start off as a human. So, I welcome our new automaton martial artist overlords. :D



But really, this is the beginning of the end. Goodbye humanity. I just hope they assimilate the brightest of us. I've always wanted to be a cyborg.

[Alex @ Dec 30th 2005 11:28PM]

I think I smell the plot of "Rocky Eleventy-Two" coming together here.

[Al @ Jan 1st 2006 9:28AM]

Sounds pretty cool, plus I can think of alternative uses for it... Substitute for boring activities such as school, hehe imagine it...

Teacher: for homework 3 books of advanced mathematics and quantum mechanics.

Robot: come here a minute... BAM!



ahhhh....

[Scott @ Jan 1st 2006 3:13PM]

This is reminiscent of an old Twilight Zone episode!

[Kyle @ Jan 1st 2006 7:43PM]

Nice Twilight Zone reference, it's the first thing I thought when I saw the picture.



Also, I know the story is about robot vs. human training, but would a robot vs. robot fight really entail violence? (i.e. The kind that the media will use as a scapegoat once they've ridden the "violence in video games" horse into the ground.)



I can see the bumperstickers: "Robots don't kill people, programmers do."



Glad I'm a H/W guy...

[eclipse @ Jan 2nd 2006 8:02AM]

Nice,

but what will the "flesh" be made out of once the cheap oil peaks and then goes into decline... becoming vastly more expensive oil. Isn't plastic made from oil? We are about to head into the last oil crisis, but we still have time to make fighting manequins? I don't get it.

[RYan Metcalf @ Jan 3rd 2006 10:11AM]

Looks really cool. I'd love to 'hack' it to change it to something totally different in behavior like that Santa 'hack' that came out a while back.



"Nice,

but what will the "flesh" be made out of once the cheap oil peaks and then goes into decline... becoming vastly more expensive oil. Isn't plastic made from oil? We are about to head into the last oil crisis, but we still have time to make fighting manequins? I don't get it."

That or the numerous plastics made from plants, vegetable/soy oils and numerous other compounds.