Tokyo has to be the humanoid robot capital of the world. Go there and you’ll find humanoids working at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. And it’s the home of Toshiba, which introduced us to the creepiest robot of CES 2015, the ChihiraAico humanoid robot.
Add humanoid flash mob to the list. One hundred humanoid robots performed a three-minute synchronized dance in Tokyo on Monday in front of onlookers. And judging by the video above, the routine was flawless.
The robots weigh just over two pounds and stand about a foot tall.
The “100 Robi” project was created by Tomotaka Takahashi of Tokyo University to show that robots can be designed and produced in large numbers at a low cost. Each of the Robi cost about $1,500.
“I think there is a difference between one robot that dances by itself and this kind of mass dancing,” Takahashi says. “So I had to think of how to achieve this and what sort of movements would work well with in the dance. That’s what I thought about when designing this routine – that was the difficult part.”