Sparkplugs

(Hey, chaosrunner, you especially would love this.)

bluekitsune pointed this out to me, and LandWalker 2005 looks pretty darn neat, for anyone who's a Gundam or Patlabor fan, as I used to be pretty heavily as a kid. (Living in Japan, with a foster-brother in my host family who was a complete mecha nut, infected me.)

But. Uhm. Going through the rest of the Sakakibara Kikai site, I admit to being slightly bewildered. The majority of their products are farming robots -- robots for baling hay, mixing and distributing feed to cattle, and so on -- and a few things like intelligent heating/cooling systems. There /is/ a cute little 'intelligent robot' and an autonomous sentry, but... Not that I'm complaining that they've decided to get into recreational combat mecha, just a bit surprised.

For those curious (and unable to read Japanese), a somewhat hasty loose translation from skimming the page says:

---

Even though you're grown-up now, ever since you were little you've wanted to pilot a robot. We, too, have wanted to be mecha pilots, and now we've made REAL NATURAL BODY MOVEMENT ROBOT "LAND WALKER"!
(Link to Discussion BBS)

With computer-control aiding balance the robot can presently move forward and backward, and turn left and right, controlled by four foot pedals. Guns are aimed and fired with hand-operated joysticks. And this is just the basic early functionality! Though only the development machine presently exists, when the actual ones are complete, you will be able to play a 'robot opposition combat' game!

DATA
Height: 3m 40cm
Weight: 1000kg
Capacity: 1 pilot
Engine power: 250cc
Speed: 1.5km/h 'drift' speed in two-foot-walking
Armament: 2 'air cushion ball' guns
Right gun: 'Balkan' type gun (6 shots)
Left gun: single shot gun type (6 shots)
Cockpit monitor system for external cameras.

---

The little pink squeezy thing is the current 'ammunition' the LandWalker uses.

To quote one of the posters on the BBS... "Sugooooooiiiiii~!" (COOL!)