Panasonic EVOLTA powered robot climbs Grand Canyon

Ain't nothing like a good robot-related publicity stunt to get the heart poundin on a Sunday. For your consideration, Panasonic's offered up a small 7-inch robot powered by EVOLTA AA cells, which willingly participated in a nearly seven hour rope climb of more than 1,700 vertical feet of sheer Grand Canyon expanse. Fine, we get it Panasonic, EVOLTA batteries last a while -- now you can stop putting adorable little robots in harm's way to prove it.

[Via Pink Tentacle]

[Haikibutsu @ May 25th 2008 8:43PM]

Lol. Astroboy Knockoff.

[Ace b @ May 25th 2008 11:21PM]

does anyone else think that he looks like he got caught doing something....naughty?


or he's at least humpin the string?

[gad get @ May 26th 2008 1:16AM]

@ Ace b

Mature. Very mature.

[Ace b @ May 26th 2008 3:23AM]

@gad get

Uh-huh.You were thinking it.I actually said it.

[Stem $ell @ May 25th 2008 8:43PM]

His styling's so 70's, are you sure he isn't TRAVOLTA powered?

[deyanimay @ May 25th 2008 8:54PM]

lol nice one

[tekdroid @ May 25th 2008 10:51PM]

classic :)

Cute bot, even tho it is used for evil (advertising disposable batteries). I admire the marketing team and all who brought this to reality, tho :) What's funny is below this article there are articles about reducing waste. All we need is an article about reducing costs too, and it would explain rechargeables pretty well :)

With that said, I'd like to tell Panasonic I'm happy with my Sanyo rechargeables
http://www.eneloop.info

...without that guilty feeling that comes from buying and disposing of millions of batteries into landfill each year...and without the complete waste-of-money' feeling, too.

[Richard Lai @ May 25th 2008 8:59PM]

I'd like to see a fight between this robot and the Duracell bunny.

[Chris Macdonald @ May 25th 2008 9:11PM]

you mean energizer bunny..?

come on man!!!!

[Richard Lai @ May 25th 2008 9:19PM]

@Chris Macdonald:

http://bp0.blogger.com/_o9ktFIgCO-A/RxhWrK8OGPI/AAAAAAAABEA/QR5mHHtivzU/s1600-h/duracell_bunny_2.jpg

FAIL!

[Greg Mcp @ May 25th 2008 9:19PM]

Years of expensive advertising, and you still can't get the product name.
Those poor poor advertising execs, their hard labor wasted.

I feel sad for them.

[Ayman @ May 25th 2008 9:45PM]

There is the Energizer Bunny

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3a/Ebunny.jpg

but i remember the energizer logo as a battery guy with muscle arms and goes with the slogan "Never Say Die"

[Ayman @ May 25th 2008 10:03PM]

Also found some old Energizer Bunny ads
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fILdYrxnrf8

and Some Duracell Bunny ads
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ltKUI8aFE
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SK2izb79Wvg

[Richard Lai @ May 25th 2008 10:28PM]

@Ayman: aww man, that's fucked up... I swear I've never heard of the Energizer bunny, but I do know their little battery dude. Perhaps the Energizer bunny was just a one-off?

According to a Wikipedia article (which requires plenty of source reference though) "the Duracell Bunny predates the Energizer Bunny, which actually began as a parody of the Duracell Bunny commercials".

[Chris Macdonald @ May 26th 2008 5:06PM]

I've seriously never heard of the duracell bunny, and energizer button is like a household name... Where do you live richard?

[Richard Lai @ May 26th 2008 5:23PM]

@Chris: I live in Hong Kong and London, both of which are where the Duracell Bunny can be regularly seen.

Apparently the Energizer Bunny does not appear in Europe and Australia where the Duracell Bunny is seen instead. But some US residents have said that they have seen the Duracell Bunny.

I guess you are from the US?

[Chris Macdonald @ May 27th 2008 5:53PM]

Canada, so pretty much...

[okeygrak @ May 25th 2008 9:04PM]

Since they were unable to stage a demonstration of the batteries true design intent, virbrators and sex toys, they had to settle for a robot climbing the grand canyon.

weak

[Stem $ell @ May 26th 2008 12:23AM]

I dunno... 'Grand Canyon' could be metaphor, writ large (make that XXXXXL!)

[poopy_pants @ May 25th 2008 9:06PM]

it's mega man!

[Ace b @ May 25th 2008 9:31PM]

Dude....wtf is wrong with you?

Don't mock Rockman with your petty comparison to this pitiful excuse of a android.

Thinking he's like Rockman.....you disgust me.

[gabe @ May 25th 2008 9:16PM]

anyone have a link to the full 7 hour climb?

[bolezhinkov @ May 25th 2008 9:21PM]

no but I bet I can tell you what happens . . .

[gabe @ May 25th 2008 9:24PM]

heh true - here i found it - its the 7 hour climb fast fwd'd to 1:30 secs

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

[Reader @ May 25th 2008 9:45PM]

Gah been a while since I've been rolled. Had the speakers pretty loud too, almost scared me.

[t3_slider @ May 25th 2008 11:38PM]

Rickrolling? Seriously, bandwagon follower much? Only the losers who *think* they're cool do that now. It's like a lot of these annoying memes -- robot overlords, doom, crysis, etc. They may have been funny once, but only annoying losers do that now. Find something current to annoy us with.

[gabe @ May 25th 2008 11:47PM]

its still funny - especially now that it annoyed u :rofl:

[Jaws @ May 26th 2008 1:53AM]

I hope you're happy Gabe... I spit on my monitor from bursting out laughing... :(

LOL

[echiu @ May 25th 2008 9:20PM]

somewhere, a destitute bunny is crying over it's drum set.

either that or training to swim the english channel.

*que Eye of the Tiger and Rocky-esque montage.

[Stem $ell @ May 26th 2008 12:06AM]

I can see you're really flexing your 'evocative story telling' muscles, here.. funny and emotionally, er... charged!

[Arthur Randolph @ May 25th 2008 9:27PM]

Let's take the data : m=130 grams, z=530 meters.
Considering : g = 9.8 m.s^-1,
that would take an energy of : Ep=m*g*z=676 J
Let's take a comparison with rechargeable AA batteries, they are usually rated at 1.2V and something about 2500mAh for the fairly good ones.
Ep/1.2V=156mAh.
Considering that an electric motor's efficiency should be pretty good all I can say is that the experiment doesn't prove anything. Crappy publicity stunt as usual.

[TavisJohn @ May 25th 2008 9:53PM]

Yes it was just a crappy publicity stunt. If they wanted to relay make it an "Experiment" than there should have been at least 2 identical robots, each robot with a different brand of batteries. And in order to call this a success the EVOLTA batteries should have climbed about 2x higher than the other robots.

[tekdroid @ May 25th 2008 10:55PM]

TavisJohn @ May 25th 2008 9:53PM

Yes it was just a crappy publicity stunt. If they wanted to relay make it an "Experiment" than there should have been at least 2 identical robots, each robot with a different brand of batteries. And in order to call this a success the EVOLTA batteries should have climbed about 2x higher than the other robots.
-------
Ah, you're going against the rule of publicity stunts. They aren't about accuracy or common-sense, or even fair play, they are about headlines and free advertising.

Back to marketing class for you!
;)

[Sparky @ May 25th 2008 10:52PM]

Freaky and silly.

Sincerely,
Sparky the Aibo