The Kuratas Mecha robot is an art/aspirational nerd project by Suidobashi Heavy Industry. This full-sized Mech robot features a ride-in cockpit, “rocket” launchers, and a “smile controlled” BB Gatling gun. That’s right: when you smile, this thing unleashes thousands of tiny plastic BBs.
Unveiled at Wonder Fest 2012 in Tokyo, you can control the robot with either a set of master-slave joysticks or using a more fluid Kinect interface. It runs something called the V-SIDO (Bushido) OS and includes touchscreen support inside the cockpit as well as 3G wireless connectivity so you can control it via phone.
You can “price out” your own Mech here but rest-assured you won’t be able to drive one of these off the lot any time soon. It’s a one-off project and, as cool as it is, it only moves at about 10KM per hour.
There are some who are suggesting this is CG but considering the AFP/Getty picked up some photos of it, it looks about as real as you can get.
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