Of course making a giant robot suit is no easy task, but Hajime Research Institute is 22 percent there.

Ah yes, what young child hasn’t dreamed of having their very own robot, or better, a gigantic robot suit that we can climb into and fly through the cosmos or to the nearest McDonald’s after bedtime because mom and dad ain’t got jack on a Gundam-style mobile suit.

Most of us grow up and abandoned those fantasies once we were old enough to go to McDonald’s freely. However, some continue to hold onto the dream. Many of these grown kids can be found in Osaka’s Hajime Research Institute.

Their goal is to create a bipedal rideable robot that is 18 meters (59 feet) tall. Starting back in 2010, the company created its first tiny bipedal robot in two years. Since then they have been gradually upping the size with each iteration. Now, in 2016, Hajime has posted videos of their Hajime 43 (HJM43) bipedal rideable robot.

Standing at 4 meters (13 feet) and weighing in at over 300 kg, Hajime may move slow but is surprisingly graceful for such a big machine. It’s a small step for robot, but giant leap for robot-kind.

The pilot enters into the belly of HJM-43 where it’s cockpit is located.

Inside the cockpit a joy stick controls the movement of the robot. To operate the finer movements of HJM the institute has added a “master-slave” interface in which a scaled down model of the robot can be posed by the pilot and the actual robot responds accordingly.

Sure it won’t win any beauty pageants, but since Hajime 43 is only a stepping stone to to Institute’s ultimate goal, it would only be wasteful to gussy it up with some decals and streamers. Also, the fact that such a small company is making this kind of progress shows how far along this technology has come.

Source: Sankei West, Hajime Research Institute, YouTube/hajimerobot (Japanese)

Original article by Mr. Sato

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