Back in September, Panasonic announced an unusual publicity stunt: let a cute mini robot walk from Tokyo to Kyoto – powered solely by the company’s rechargeable EVOLTA batteries. The 1kg robot started the journey on September 23 in Tokyo, and today, Panasonic proudly announced the robot has arrived safely in Kyoto.
In other words, it took the the little guy about 2 months to travel 310 miles. To cover the trek, Panasonic set up a dedicated Ustream channel, a YouTube channel, an official website, and a blog (all in Japanese only). The robot was powered by a total of twelve EVOLTA batteries, which were charged daily.
Panasonic says that it moved at 2 to 3km/h and arrived in Kyoto way ahead of schedule (December 10).
It wasn’t the first time big P used the robot for a publicity stunt. In 2008, we blogged an EVOLTA-powered mini robot that climbed up a 500 meter high cliff at Grand Canyon. One year later, we’ve shown you how such a robot ran 24km on the famous Le Mans 24 Hours circuit in France (on 2 AA batteries).
Via Jiji [JP]