CloudRobot render (via https://www.facebook.com/cloudrobot)
Introducing first, from the red corner, rated as the best pound for pound toy boxing game of the last century, hailing from the Marx Toy Company... Rock’em Sock’em Robot! And in the blue corner, weighing in at 5 lbs and a height of 16 inches, a new fighter with no wins and no defeats, hailing from Budapest, Hungary... CloudRobot!
Are you a fan of the nearly defunct Rock’em Sock’em Robot game? Well even if you’re not, who’s not a fan of robots nowadays? The new CloudRobot offers us a technologically advanced version of a classic toy fighting game revered by boxing fans of all ages.
TTTechRobot, the Hungarian robotics company consisting of six engineers, was in search of an American marketing partner at Toy Fair 2013 this past week. Their small booth was comprised of a miniaturized, metallic boxing ring where the CloudRobots traded blows and an LCD screen for on-lookers to see a virtual simulation of the action going on in the ring. Each CloudRobot packs quite a punch with an aluminum alloy body and a total of 21 motors all controlled by a single AVR microcontroller. This all gives way to a remarkably lifelike range of motion and precision, and, thanks to the electromagnets keeping the robot securely anchored to the ring, can deliver a hefty blow to any opponent.
For now, no actual punches are landed by either robot - though each CloudBot comes equipped with a set of mini-Everlast boxing gloves. In a demonstration, human combatants controlled the motion of the robots through remote controls. Since no punches are actually delivered, the score is kept virtually by an accompanying computer. Nonetheless, the winning robot was not shy about letting everyone know it was the victor by raising its arms in triump.
The CloudRobot game will also allow players to fight, as the name suggests, over the cloud. So, as long as two people on opposite ends of the globe happen to have a set of these robots at home, they can virtually duke it out over the internet. Rock’em Sock’em fans, rejoice! The classic game is keeping up with the times. TTTech hopes to find a partner soon and bring their high-end toy to the consumer market soon at a price of $300 per robotic combatant.