These days, you don't have to be a whiz kid to build robots in your basement: off-the-shelf microcontrollers, Arduino boards and Lego Mindstorms can take care of the hard work. Adam Halverson, however, is the real deal -- he built his first robot at the age of twelve, and after six years of failed attempts, he's crafted a full-size humanoid that can walk. Filed with pistons, servos and an assimilated laptop, the VSR-2:Talos FG cost the South Dakota high school senior $10,000 to build with fellow student Anthony Winterton; he claims he could reconstruct it for half now that he's done. The hulking metal machine won him an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2010 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, where he's competing for up to $75,000 in prize money. We'll be watching to see if he recoups his investment -- awards will be announced this afternoon. See how the Talos FG's gears mesh in our gallery, or watch the bot take its first steps after the break.

Update: The awards are in, and though Talos FG's grippers didn't manage to pull down that $75,000 grand prize, they did manage to net Halverson $5,500 in cash and savings bonds from Intel, the Cade Museum Foundation and the U.S. Army.

Our enthusiasm for this particular walking robot is unfortunately a bit dampened by a lack of video, or any evidence of actual walking, but both of those are promised to be forthcoming, and the bot still has enough going for it to distinguish itself in the meantime. Proudly made in the USA by Futurebots, this so-called ATOM-7x robot is actually powered by not one but two Atom processors (a dual-core Atom 330 and an Atom 230), which themselves power two separate systems running Windows XP and Windows 7. Those, paired with slew of sensors, gyros and accelerometers, promises to give the bot a whole range of humanoid capabilities, including an advanced stereo vision system that its creators say will let it "take on real world problems." Complete details are otherwise still a bit light, but the bot can apparently operate autonomously in addition to being used as a telepresence robot, and it unsurprisingly wasn't cheap or easy to build ("2 mortgages and lots of sweat"). We'll be sure to keep an eye out for any sightings of this one in action.

Alright, so this so-called "Giger" do-it-yourself robot may not truly be Giger-esque, but it did cost upwards of $10,000 and take more than 100 hours to build, which is enough for us to forgive a little mis-naming. The biggest expense (and time sink), it seems, came as a result of the builder's decision to use professional-grade servos instead of the usual DIY fare, which are both finicky and pricey (between $200 and $300 apiece). After a bit of fine-tuning, however, our pal "Tyberius" was able to get the bot to show off a few moves for the camera, and even walk across the desk without toppling over (he's apparently looking to give it a more natural gait next). Head on past the break to see for yourself.