R2D2 Gets Jiggy With It
01/08/1999 . Source: Jessica Martin 

Grease your lubes, polish your circuits, and check your AI algorithms one last time, my robot friends, because the Crufts of Androids is getting ready to test your mettle.

Buy Star Wars in the USA - or Buy Star Wars in the UK

Battling, brawling bots are getting ready even as I write to compete in www.robocup.org, the third annual robocup competition.

This harsh competition aims to weed out the dodgy droids from the rocking robots in a series of endurance and intelligence tests, and many a would-be Sir Clive Sinclair or Bill Gates has been left weeping on the side-lines as their mechanical baby is left off the victor's podium.

There's a whole host of robots coming onto the market now, of which the best known is probably Cye at http://www.personalrobots.com/

Cye is a hobby robot controlled through a simple graphic user interface on a PC, and has appealed to a number of people (e.g. Californian geeks) who enjoy the dubious fun offered by remote control devices - many of whom have now taken to creating their own Cye software & hardware accessories.

Heck, it's more fun than feeding a cat. Less messy too.

Similar sites can be found at http://www.elekit.com/ which manufactures science kit bots, as well as http://www.geckosystems.com/ which does a rather natty care bot.